Edwidge Danticat is no stranger to acclaim. In years past, her work has been selected for Oprah’s Book Club, the Reader’s Digest Grant, and the National Book Critics Circle Award.
On Friday, November 18th, The CUNY City College of New York presented the Haitian-American writer & MacArthur Fellow with the 2011 Langston Hughes Medal. In an informal meet and greet gathering during their Langston Hughes Festival, Danticat met with students and shared how she has come to balance motherhood and writing.
“A lot of good thing have been happening for me, and I can’t imagine any of it happening with me not being a mom. There is definitely another layer to life. Trying to strike a balance is not always easy,” says Danticat. “I always wrote at night. I still do, but lately I do a lot more writing in my head. I have definitely become more efficient.”
The author of several fiction and nonfiction titles, including The Farming of Bones, Breath, Eyes, Memory and Brother, I’m Dying, is now working on a fiction piece that she admits she has been struggling with but states, “I have been digging deeper and trying harder. Those moments, when it is working, they are bliss.”
Story and photograph by Eartha Watts-Hicks
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