Danticat to present Morrison Lecture

Haitian-born author Edwidge Danticat will deliver the annual Toni Morrison Lecture at 8 p.m. Tuesday, March 25, in Richardson Auditorium, Alexander Hall. The event is free, but tickets are required.

The lecture, titled "Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work," was inspired by author Albert Camus' landmark essay "Create Dangerously" and his definition of art as "a revolt against everything fleeting and unfinished in the world." Danticat, who was born in Haiti during the Duvalier dictatorship and moved to the United States when she was 12, will talk about her experiences and those of other immigrant artists living and working between sometimes violent and unfriendly worlds.

Danticat's most recent book, the memoir "Brother, I'm Dying," was a 2007 finalist for the National Book Award and a 2008 winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for autobiography. Her other books include "Breath, Eyes, Memory"; "Krik? Krak!," a National Book Award finalist; and "The Farming of Bones," an American Book Award winner.

Danticat edited "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." She also has written two young-adult novels, "Anacaona, Golden Flower" and "Behind the Mountains," as well as a travel narrative, "After the Dance, A Walk Through Carnival in Jacmel."

Sponsored by the Center for African American Studies and Princeton University Press, the Toni Morrison Lectures spotlight the work of prominent scholars and writers. The lectures will be published in book form by Princeton University Press. The series, which was inaugurated in 2007, honors Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison, Princeton's Robert F. Goheen Professor in the Humanities Emeritus.

Tickets for the Danticat lecture are available from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays at the Center for African American Studies in Stanhope Hall or at the Frist Campus Center Ticket Office, or by calling University Ticketing at (609) 258-9220.