Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat

At an astonishingly young age Edwidge Danticat has become one of our most celebrated new novelists, a writer who evokes the wonder, terror and heartache of her native Haiti—and the enduring strength of Haiti's women—with a vibrant imagery and narrative grace that bears witness to her people's suffering and courage.

At the age of twelve, Sophie Caco is sent from her impoverished village of Croix—des—Rosets to New York, to be reunited with a mother she barely remembers. There she discovers secrets that no child should ever know, and a legacy of shame that can be healed only when she returns to Haiti—to the women who first reared her. What ensues is a passionate journey through a landscape charged with the supernatural and scarred by political violence, in a novel that bears witness to the traditions, suffering, and wisdom of an entire people.