When Haitians tell a story, they say "Krik?" and the eager listeners answer "Krak!" In Krik? Krak! In her second novel, ...
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Aug 15, 2007
Deepthi
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I remember when I was in high school, Edwidge Danticat was one of the new rising literary stars who was getting a lot of attention. It's nice to come back to this collection of short stories and realize that it was completely justified. Krik? Krak! is that rare collection which feels like a novel in its own right -- each story is not only a perfect gem on its own, but connects thematically to the rest of the stories to create a greater whole. The stories are linked by a network of metaphors an
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Jan 05, 2009
Krik? Krak! By Edwidge Danticat. (pronounced at least by the narrator as “creek crock”.
This is a series of short stories written by the author. Publisher’s note:
American Book Award-winning author Edwidge Danticat earned a National Book Award nomination for this brilliant collection of stories, which includes the
Pushcart Prize-winner "Between the Pool and the Gardenias". A remarkably gifted writer, Danticat examines the brutality of her native Haiti, pa More...
This is a series of short stories written by the author. Publisher’s note:
American Book Award-winning author Edwidge Danticat earned a National Book Award nomination for this brilliant collection of stories, which includes the
Pushcart Prize-winner "Between the Pool and the Gardenias". A remarkably gifted writer, Danticat examines the brutality of her native Haiti, pa More...
Mar 12, 2009
L8blmr
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This book about Haiti broke my heart! Though the common theme throughout the stories is surely that of "hope", I have to warn prospective readers that quite often, hope is crushed - cruelly, and sometimes violently. Still, the author has quite a talent for storytelling in the tradition of Haitian women with a poignancy and appeal that keep you reading, and perhaps crying.
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Mar 26, 2011
Robyn
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This book was really a mixed bag for me. Some of the short stories are really engrossing, interesting, and meaningful, while others were vague, puzzling, and dull. If you are from Haiti, or are studying that country, then this book will be a lot more useful and enlightening for you than it was for me, but a lot of the historical aspects of the book were really lacking in context for the average American reader.If you come to this book with no knowledge of the country, then most of this is puzzli
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May 17, 2010
Rowland
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The Dangerous Power of Hope
Hope has the power to give people strength in times of suffering, but it also threatens to blind them to reality. Most of the characters in Krik? Krak! hold on to hope in order to keep themselves alive. In “Night Women,” the narrator makes up stories about an angel coming to rescue her and her son in order to hide the truth from him, but she also uses these stories to escape the harsh reality of her life. Similarly, in “Seeing Things Simple,” Princesse avoi More...
Hope has the power to give people strength in times of suffering, but it also threatens to blind them to reality. Most of the characters in Krik? Krak! hold on to hope in order to keep themselves alive. In “Night Women,” the narrator makes up stories about an angel coming to rescue her and her son in order to hide the truth from him, but she also uses these stories to escape the harsh reality of her life. Similarly, in “Seeing Things Simple,” Princesse avoi More...
Mar 12, 2010
Hunt
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Krik? Krak! by Edwidge Danticat followed the lives of 3 generations of Hatian women both in Haiti and in the United States. Danticat's relaxed style of writing is extremely easy to follow and it allowed me to continue reading the novel when i found particular parts boring/slow. Danticat was also extremely effective at revealing the ordeals and struggles that Hatian women were forced to confront: poverty, childbirth/rearing, rape, marraiage, sexism, etc.... Krik? Krak! also chronichled the poli
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Mar 12, 2010
Francesca
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The Kingdom of this World was my first introduction to Haitian history and literature, and now with Krik? Krak! I feel as if I have a much broader more comprehensive understanding of this culture. Although the topics that Danticat writes about in this book of short stories are not pleasant or easy to digest they are in their own ways beautiful. She writes about the pain and hardship that her culture has endured, and from that adversity it becomes easier to understand Haitian adversity. Before I
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Mar 12, 2010
Sarah
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Edwidge Danticat’s novel "Krik? Krak!" opens with a poem by Sal Scalora. Entitled “White Darkness/Black Dreamings,” it reads, “We tell the stories so that the young ones/will know what came before them. They ask Krik? we say Krak!/Our stories are kept in our hearts.”
So it is after reading this poem, Danticat’s readers are transported from the present to the ‘storytelling place,’ prepared to absorb the stories of Haitian daughters and sons who are now identified as great-great- gr More...
So it is after reading this poem, Danticat’s readers are transported from the present to the ‘storytelling place,’ prepared to absorb the stories of Haitian daughters and sons who are now identified as great-great- gr More...
Mar 11, 2010
Alex
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Edwidge Danticat's "Krik? Krak!" is an emotional journey through the lives of multiple generations of Haitian women from the time of extreme oppression in Haiti to modern "free" America. It is a story of assimilation without forgetting where you come from. Danticat very successfully utilizes the Haitian tradition of story-telling, Krik? Krak, as she weaves nine separate but subtly connected short stories into one powerful novel. In each of these stories, Danticat highlights t
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Mar 10, 2010
Steve
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Edwidge Danticat presents her readers with a look at cross-generational linkage throughout Krik? Krak! The various stories capture an essence of nostalgia as the author attempts to unfold the traumatic events many women have endured. From unread love letters of longing across the ocean to simple marriages in modern New York City, the reader cannot help but be transfixed with the relationships these characters explore. Danticat successfully finds a way to create a novel out of numerous short s
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Mar 07, 2010
Smatarese
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Rather than focusing on one aspect or facet of Haiti’s history or culture, Edwidge Danticate’s Krik? Krak! weaves nine distinct stories into one novel that addresses “Haitian life” as a whole. Stories of love and loss, war and exile, as well as assimilation and acculturation, pervade the nine vignettes that make up the book, creating an emotionally turbulent yet extremely poignant and enjoyable novel.
The first and last chapters of the novel—which relate two entirely different st More...
The first and last chapters of the novel—which relate two entirely different st More...
Mar 07, 2010
Kahena
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"Krik Krak” is by far one of the best novels I have read in a long time. Edwidge Danticat encourages her readers to partake in a Haitian tradition of story-telling with “Krik Krak.” Through her collection of short stories Danticat illustrates the violence, pain, horror and corruption that are commonplace in the lives of many Haitians. Danticat not only writes about Haiti’s history, but the same challenges face people today. Despite the gruesome truth that Danticat conveys, she manages to de
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Mar 04, 2010
Catherine
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Wow. Edwidge Danticat’s Krik? Krak! is inviting in its apparent simplicity, but gains relevance and worth as the reader discovers its many complex layers. Structured as a series of short stories, Krik? Krak! is able to cover a wide breadth of the struggles, traumas, and successes experienced by the people of Haiti. The characters and their tales are incredibly personal and emotionally poignant, cover topics such as long distance love, motherhood, art and education, and sisterly relationships. Ho
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Jan 04, 2010
Sophie
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She then gave me the pillow, my mother's pillow. It was open, half-filled with my mother's hair. Each time they shaved her head, my mother had kept the hair for her pillow. I hugged the pillow against my chest, feeling some of the hair rising in clouds of dark dust into my nostrils. -48
She nearly didn't marry him because it was said that people with angular hairlines often have very troubled lives. -65
He always slaps the mosquitoes dead on his face without even waking. In More...
She nearly didn't marry him because it was said that people with angular hairlines often have very troubled lives. -65
He always slaps the mosquitoes dead on his face without even waking. In More...
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Mar 10, 2010
Michelle
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Danticat's Krik? Krak! is a fascinating collection of short stories about several generations of women of a Haitian family. The stories often deal with the painful realities of Haitian life, including rape, false imprisonment and extreme poverty. Daticat's writing style is fairly easy to read, but full of complexity and deeply affecting. Each story had its memorable and affecting parts but the opening story, Children of the Sea. It is told in the unique style of two lovers writing letters to
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Jan 14, 2008
Shelia
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My good friend Mark tried to get me to read this book a long time ago and so he bought it for me. I could not appreciate it then...but after he passed away I was drawn to it and understood why he wanted me to read it. It's about strength, and softness...about doing what you have to do to satisfy that ache in your heart even if it means dying...several stories that make no sense alone but together speak volumes..
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Aug 19, 2011
Ryan
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"The Groom's Still Waiting at the Alter" is one of my favorite Bob Dylan songs, but it's on one of his worst albums. So I rarely recommend it. Nevertheless, it's a great single and it can exist independently of the album (Shot of Love) on greatest hits albums, live albums, and even as a single song downloaded from iTunes, Amazon, or a Torrent. You could probably find it on youtube.
If only short stories had it so easy. They don't even get radio play, for one thing, and few m More...
If only short stories had it so easy. They don't even get radio play, for one thing, and few m More...
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Mar 11, 2010
Michael
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Edwides Danticat writes one of the most passionate novels I have ever read in "Krik? Krak!". The poetic short stories of different Haitian families describe the struggles of a people in a violent period of their countries history. The tradition of story telling plays an important role throughout the novel, not only because the use of written communication was seen as a means of revolt, but because Danticat expresses a concern for the lack of gratitude for anyone's story but their own
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Mar 29, 2010
Jasmine
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The recent earthquake in Haiti has started to draw some much needed attention to the region, but before the earthquake struck there were many tragedies facing the Haitian people. Edwidge Danticat does a beautiful job of expressing the unending suffering the Haitian people have had to endure in her novel, Krik? Krak!. If you cannot empathize with the characters that come to life in this novel, then you are not fully engaging your senses as you read. Danticat's writing style is so smooth that i
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Oct 19, 2011
Rachel
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I've got mixed feelings about this book.
The stories definitely do a good job of making the situations come to life and I really cared about some of the characters, but it was also extremely difficult to read. Lots of violence against women and other despicable acts. It made me queasy, but also made my heart ache for the Haitian people.
I read this following "In the Time of the Butterflies," which mentions some of the same massacres, but from the Dominican sta More...
The stories definitely do a good job of making the situations come to life and I really cared about some of the characters, but it was also extremely difficult to read. Lots of violence against women and other despicable acts. It made me queasy, but also made my heart ache for the Haitian people.
I read this following "In the Time of the Butterflies," which mentions some of the same massacres, but from the Dominican sta More...
Sep 09, 2010
Jessica
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This collection of interlinked short stories is a quick read, but the characters flitted in and out of my thoughts long after I set down the book. The hardships and tortures faced by these Haitian women across multiple generations seem almost unbelievable, they are so far from my experience. It is so easy to dismiss a whole country as a place of suffering and not see the people as individuals. Danticat's stories personalize Haiti and remind you that these horrors happen to ordinary people i
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Jun 17, 2010
natania
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I enjoyed the collection of short stories. It is seldom that I get to read a book that I see myself in. I don't mean in the sense of the goverment upheaval and massacre's that happened in Haiti, but in the characters relationships and little traditions that are definitive of just not Haiti, but the Caribbean in general. From the first story where I recognized the mirror image of how my mother's side of the family loves and how I inherited it to the last story where two sisters one American an
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Jul 25, 2010
Laura
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This set of interwoven short stories about Haiti, Haitians, and Haitian-Americans helped me understand better why so many took to rickety, leaking boats to get out of the country in the 1980s. As any accurate portrayal of the lives of civilians under such a regime as the Duvaliers' will, the narrative is brutal in parts, with few happy endings. The stories also illustrated the different choices of ordinary people to protect themselves and their loved ones from the regime, grinding poverty, and f
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Jul 07, 2008
K
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I confess I didn't read all the stories even though I really liked it. I like the cover photo. It's arresting and beautiful. I hadn't read anything about Haiti before. This book is sad. I had a taste but didn't want to read on.
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Mar 07, 2009
Laura
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I actually didn't like this book very much while I was reading it. There is a lot of sexual sadness and just hard Haitian life stuff--I wasn't sure where the author was going with it. Feel sorry for Haitians and stop corrupt government? If I'm going to read about rape, etc. the point had better not be for shock value/to make the reader uncomfortable/all in the name of self expression. But at the last sentences I understood and liked the message: " 'Why is it that when you lose something, it
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Mar 12, 2010
Beau
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Krik Krak is a confusing novel about the themes of femenity and love. The book describes a lineage of Haitian women who go through massive amounts of pain and suffering. The story is told in the Haitian story-telling style of Krik Krak, so it is at least genuine in that way.
Personally, I detested this novel. I thought that it got progressively worse and worse as I went through each successive stories. I think the book makes decent statements about the connections between gener More...
Personally, I detested this novel. I thought that it got progressively worse and worse as I went through each successive stories. I think the book makes decent statements about the connections between gener More...
Mar 11, 2010
Christina
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Krik? Krak! is one of the most lyrical novels that I have encountered. While I found it to be very depressing at times it was definitely written with “from the ground”, a perspective we don’t often get when relaying events. I think that this is a tactic that many Latin American and Caribbean authors utilize when relaying their stories. This is partly what makes their stories unique and innovative. Krik?Krak! appealed to me as a flow of consciousness. It was almost dreamlike in ways and stories t
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Feb 10, 2010
Camille
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Edwidge Danticat successfully weaves together a rather ugly tapestry of her perspective of Haitian culture. There are so many unsettling instances of human suffering in the earlier stories of "Krik? Krak!", but Danticat manages to alleviate the intensity with threads of color and possibility in such stories as "Seeing Things Simply". I really liked the structure of that story.
Danticat's last two stories are a murky fusion of Haitian custom and American influence. More...
Danticat's last two stories are a murky fusion of Haitian custom and American influence. More...
May 23, 2011
Julia
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This is ten generations of Haitian and Haitian-American women written in nine short stories and an epilogue. One teenager and her lover write each other, as he is on a leaking boat in the sea escaping Haiti, and she faces cruelty of an unnamed repressive ruler. A woman has been jailed for having wings, a grindingly poor mother and wife, loses her husband, when he steals the balloon of a rich man and jumps out of it.
“We know people by their stories.” (p. 185)
“In our world, writers a More...
“We know people by their stories.” (p. 185)
“In our world, writers a More...
Jun 22, 2009
I had hyped up this book too much in my mind before I read it - I'd thought it would be AMAZING (it did win all these awards, and blah blah blah) - but it was just good. The first story, "Children of the Sea" will remain with me, and so will the last. And even though I'm predisposed to liking Danticat - she went to Barnard, was a French major - I didn't think she made enough of her very rich material. Didn't dig deep enough. I've read some of her non-fiction essays before and found
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