Krik? Krak!

“We tell the stories so that the young ones / will know what came before them. They ask Krik? we say Krak! / Our stories are kept in our hearts.”

The title of the collection comes from a Haitian storytelling tradition in which storytellers gauge interest in a story by asking “Krik?”; those who want to hear the story respond “Krak!” These lines from the epigraph suggest that Edwidge Danticat’s goal for the collection is to preserve the stories of the Haitian diaspora so future generations are aware of their history.

“All anyone can hope for is just a tiny bit of love, manman says, like a drop in a cup if you can get it, or a waterfall, a flood, if you can get that too.”

Central to this story is the idea that love takes many forms; in this passage, the young female narrator is thinking of romantic love, specifically for her lover. Although she feels her love has been taken from her, the story indicates that her father’s love for her caused him to sacrifice his home and livelihood in order to save her life. At the end of the story, as her lover dies, she acknowledges her father’s sacrifice, suggesting that both loves are endless.

“I must throw my book out now. It goes down to them, Célianne and her daughter and all those children of the sea who might soon be claiming me.”

The title of this story is a reference to the 1.8 million enslaved people who died at sea during the Middle Passage, some by choice, and others as a result of the horrific conditions in which they were transported. In this passage, the young lover, who knows he is about to die, imagines the children of the sea as a welcoming reception, and a refuge from the horrors of his escape from Haiti.