Empathetic Engagement in Danticat’s Brother, I’m Dying

In 2004 while fleeing upheaval in Haiti, 81 year-old Joseph Dantica died while being detained by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. In seeking temporary asylum, Dantica became subject to regulations that can be assumed to have precipitated his death. This article discusses Edwidge Danticat’s Brother, I’m Dying, a memoir in which Danticat negotiates how best to establish her uncle’s grievability as a subject. Using Judith Butler’s Precarious Life and Frames of War as theoretical touchpoints, this article explores Danticat’s manipulation of narrative form as an interrogation of the efficacy of emotional appeals. In viewing Danticat’s narrative choices as her way to manage sites for empathetic engagement, this article questions the complexities and limits of affective citizenship.