In 1997, while in her native Dominican Republic, Julia Alvarez and her husband, Bill Eichner, became the owners of 60 acres of deforested land that ultimately became Alta Gracia, a 260-acre organic coffee farm/literary arts center. There they met Piti, a Haitian teenager working on a neighboring farm. "Somewhere in Haiti, a mother had sent her young son to the wealthier neighbor country to help the impoverished family. Every time I spotted [him], I felt the pressure of that mother's prayer in my own eyes." Soon Piti was working at Alta Gracia and had become part of Alvarez's extended family. One evening, in an attempt to assuage his homesickness, Alvarez assured Piti that when he married, she'd be at his wedding. In August 2009, Piti did indeed call on Alvarez to come to his wedding scheduled in a remote part of northern Haiti the following week.
They dropped everything and went, although the journey wasn't easy; almost a year later, a few months after Haiti's devastating earthquake, they traveled back to Haiti with Piti, his wife, Eseline, and daughter, Ludy. That trip makes up the second half of the book.
With these two deeply affecting journeys, Alvarez offers us a miniature yet beautifully illustrated portrait of her own marriage, whose bond mirrors that of her own parents, both of whom were suffering from advancing Alzheimer's yet never lost each other or the memory of their great love. Ultimately A Wedding in Haiti is a deeply personal story of family and connection that casts a light on larger issues of global community and the need for unity, compassion, and understanding. --Debra Ginsberg, author