Joseph bears witness to unspeakable horrors by filling notepads with the names (when he knows them) of the dead - unblinkingly ... While Danticat's previous books have covered some of the worst ...

Danticat quotes one of my favorite lines from Ralph ... a place where people literally died for books—died for writing them, died for reading them—the dangerous creation of the title (taken ...

a book Danticat will bring to where Maxo's body lies after the earthquake: "Your song was very beautiful and your sadness does me honor." She quotes the Haitian novelist Dany Laferriere ...