From the best-selling author of Brother, I’m Dying
and The Dew Breaker: a stunning new work of fiction
that brings us deep into the intertwined lives of a small
seaside town where a little girl, the daughter of a
fisherman, has gone missing.
Claire Limyè
Lanmè—Claire of the Sea Light—is an enchanting child born
into love and tragedy in Ville Rose, Haiti. Claire’s mother
died in childbirth, and on each of her birthdays Claire is
taken by her father, Nozias, to visit her mother’s grave.
Nozias wonders if he should give away his young daughter to
a local shopkeeper, who lost a child of her own, so that
Claire can have a better life.
But on the night of
Claire’s seventh birthday, when at last he makes the
wrenching decision to do so, she disappears. As Nozias and
others look for her, painful secrets, haunting memories, and
startling truths are unearthed among the community of men
and women whose individual stories connect to Claire, to her
parents, and to the town itself. Told with piercing lyricism
and the economy of a fable, Claire of the Sea Light
is a tightly woven, breathtaking tapestry that explores what
it means to be a parent, child, neighbor, lover, and friend,
while revealing the mysterious bonds we share with the
natural world and with one another. Embracing the magic and
heartbreak of ordinary life, it is Edwidge Danticat’s most
spellbinding, astonishing book yet.