Cornell’s first Africana studies Ph.D. among newest grads

Marsha Jean-Charles was 15 years old when she read a novel that would start her on the path to making Cornell history.“Breath, Eyes, Memory” is a semi-autobiographical novel by Edwidge Danticat. Like Jean-Charles, Danticat is Haitian-American and grew up in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, a neighborhood known as Little Haiti.