Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guest is Edwidge Danticat. Her collection of short stories, Everything Inside was released last month by Knopf. Edwidge has won the Pushcart Prize, the Pen/Faulkner award the American Book Award.

Her novels include The Art of Death, Claire of the Sea Light, Brother, I’m Dying, Breath, Eyes, Memory. The Farming of Bones, Behind the Mountain and the short story collection The Dew Breaker.

Her work has also appeared in the NYT, Time, the New Yorker Harpers and many others.

Everything Inside is a book of and about Haiti. Most of us in this country know little or nothing about this Caribbean country that was first populated by the Taino people, won independence through its slaves, was the first place Columbus set shore on—on his First Voyage in 1492, and it was the second Republic, after us in both North and South America. And the First to abolish slavery.

Edwidge is proud of her country and saddened by the disasters that have befallen it, from political upheaval, Hurricanes to a catastrophic earthquake on January 12, 2010. And even the United Nations has contributed to its grief.

Edwidge was born in Port-au-Prince and came to the US before she was a teenager.

These stories give us a great opportunity to learn more about both Haiti and at the same time allow us to understand more about families, sadness and resolve.

Welcome Edwidge and thanks so much for joining us today.