From the universally acclaimed author of Breath, Eyes, Memory and Krik? Krak! a powerful new work that explores the trials and reconciliations in the life of a man known as a "dew breaker," a torturer, whose past crimes in the country of his birth lie hidden beneath his new American reality. In Haiti in the dictatorial 1960s, Manhattan in the 1970s, Brooklyn and Queens today, we meet the dew breaker's family, neighbors, and victims. An unforgettable, deeply resonant book — of love, remorse, history, and hope, of rebellions both personal and political 73151; The Dew Breaker proves once more that in Edwidge Danticat we have a major American writer.

"Danticat's voice is that of a seasoned veteran, her pages wise and saddened, struggling on 'the pendulum between regret and forgiveness.' Searing fiction with the lived-in feel of the best memoir." Kirkus Reviews

"Danticat's masterful depiction of the emotional and spiritual reverberations of tyranny and displacement reveals the intricate mesh of relationships that defines every life, and the burden of traumatic inheritances: the crimes and tragedies that one generation barely survives, the next must reconcile." Booklist (Starred Review)

"Breathtaking....With terrifying wit and flowered pungency, Edwidge Danticat has managed over the past 10 years to portray the torment of the Haitian people....In The Dew Breaker, Danticat has written a Haitian truth: prisoners all, even the jailers." Richard Eder, New York Times Book Review

"Riveting....Like a young Cassandra, gifted with the sight whether she wants it or not...Danticat leads her readers into the underworld. It's furnished like home." Kai Maristed, Los Angeles Times

We meet him late in life: a quiet man, a good father and husband, a fixture in his Brooklyn neighborhood, a landlord and barber with a terrifying scar across his face. As the book unfolds, moving seamlessly between Haiti in the 1960s and New York City today, we enter the lives of those around him, and learn that he has also kept a vital, dangerous secret. Edwidge Danticat’s brilliant exploration of the “dew breaker”--or torturer--s an unforgettable story of love, remorse, and hope; of personal and political rebellions; and of the compromises we make to move beyond the most intimate brushes with history. It firmly establishes her as one of America’s most essential writers.

From the universally acclaimed author of "Breath, Eyes, Memory" comes a brilliant, deeply moving work of fiction that explores the world of a "dew breaker"--a torturer--a man whose brutal crimes in the country of his birth lie hidden beneath his new American reality.

Edwidge Danticat was born in Haiti and moved to the United States when she was twelve. She is the author of several books, including Breath, Eyes, Memory, an Oprah Book Club selection; Krik? Krak!, a National Book Award finalist; and The Farming of Bones, an American Book Award winner. She is also the editor of The Butterfly’s Way: Voices from the Haitian Dyaspora in the United States and The Beacon Best of 2000: Great Writing by Men and Women of All Colors and Cultures.