When the author was only four years old, her parents emigrated from Haiti to New York in search of a better life, leaving their daughter in the care of her uncle Joseph. A peaceful pastor in Port-au-Prince, Joseph raised Edwidge with the love and devotion of a father, despite facing many hardships in politically turbulent Haiti. It wasn't until she was 12 years old that Edwidge was finally reunited with her parents--and forced to confron teh inevitably complex emotions.