Literary Book Club
Dèy by Edwidge Danticat
Wednesday, January 20
1:00pm - 2:00pm
North Lauderdale Saraniero Branch
Conference RoomJoin us for a thoughtful discussion focused on the characters, themes, and writing style of this month's book pick.
Finalist for the 2026 National Book Award for Fiction
“Is home the place where we are born? Or is it the place where we die?” These questions haunt Magnolia, a successful Haitian American real estate agent in Miami. When she hears gunfire while at a shopping mall, she takes shelter in a nearby restaurant, cowering with fellow shoppers and diners. Once she’s safely home, Magnolia keeps this traumatic event from everyone. But given her life back, she begins to see everything her extraordinary bond with her daughter, Zoë; her nearly broken relationship with Zoë’s father; the challenges of her mentally troubled mother, whose unraveling patterns Magnolia worries she’s spiraling toward herself; and her father’s affair with a woman who has borne him a child. While struggling through the labyrinth of her past, Magnolia must also come to terms with the losses sustained that life-altering day, and nearly every day by her parents and sibling in Haiti.
Can love or family protect us from harm? Does optimism or fear win out in one’s heart? Which side will prevail for Magnolia? Pulled between these questions, each of which involves a high-stakes choice—Miami or Haiti, single or married, mortal or ghost, before or after—Magnolia is a narrator who is “yon pati koukouy, part firefly”: flitting and shimmering between different worlds.
Taking as its title a Haitian Kreyòl word for mourning, Dèy is a profoundly warm and moving novel about the importance not only of sharing grief but also of inseverable family ties. Brave and striking, Dèy is one of Danticat’s most powerful and deeply affecting works yet, told with her signature “unfaltering voice and evocative beauty” (The Boston Globe).
Explore Dey at the Broward County Library.
North Lauderdale Saraniero Branch
| Mon, Nov 09 | 12:00PM to 8:00PM |
| Tue, Nov 10 | 12:00PM to 8:00PM |
| Wed, Nov 11 | Closed |
| (Veteran's Day) | |
| Thu, Nov 12 | 10:00AM to 6:00PM |
| Fri, Nov 13 | 10:00AM to 6:00PM |
| Sat, Nov 14 | 10:00AM to 6:00PM |
| Sun, Nov 15 | Closed |

