
Claire of the Sea Light
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $17.19
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Robin Miles
-
By:
-
Edwidge Danticat
About this listen
Claire Limyè Lanmè - Claire of the Sea Light - is an enchanting child born into love and tragedy in Ville Rose, Haiti. Claire’s mother died in childbirth, and on each of her birthdays Claire is taken by her father, Nozias, to visit her mother’s grave. Nozias wonders if he should give away his young daughter to a local shopkeeper, who lost a child of her own, so that Claire can have a better life. But on the night of Claire’s seventh birthday, when at last he makes the wrenching decision to do so, she disappears. As Nozias and others look for her, painful secrets, haunting memories, and startling truths are unearthed among the community of men and women whose individual stories connect to Claire, to her parents, and to the town itself.
Told with piercing lyricism and the economy of a fable, Claire of the Sea Light is a tightly woven, breathtaking tapestry that explores what it means to be a parent, child, neighbor, lover, and friend, while revealing the mysterious bonds we share with the natural world and with one another. Embracing the magic and heartbreak of ordinary life, it is Edwidge Danticat’s most spellbinding, astonishing book yet.
©2013 Edwidge Danticat (P)2013 Recorded BooksListeners also enjoyed...
-
The Dew Breaker
- By: Edwidge Danticat
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 6 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the universally acclaimed author of Breath, Eyes, Memory and Krik? Krak!, a brilliant, deeply moving work of fiction that explores the world of a "dew breaker", a torturer, a man whose brutal crimes in the country of his birth lie hidden beneath his new American reality.
-
-
Almost, but not quite
- By Patricia on 06-15-04
By: Edwidge Danticat
-
Behind the Mountains
- By: Edwidge Danticat
- Narrated by: Ella Turenne
- Length: 3 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is election time in Haiti, and bombs are going off in the capital city of Port-au-Prince. During a visit from her home in rural Haiti, Celiane Esperance and her mother are nearly killed. Looking at her country with new eyes, Celiane gains a fresh resolve to be reunited with her father in Brooklyn, New York. The harsh winter and concrete landscape of her new home are a shock to Celiane, who witnesses her parents' struggle to earn a living and her brother's uneasy adjustment to American society, and at the same time encounters her own challenges with learning and school violence.
-
-
Beautiful
- By rv on 01-23-25
By: Edwidge Danticat
-
Everything Inside
- Stories
- By: Edwidge Danticat
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 6 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In these eight powerful, emotionally absorbing stories, a romance unexpectedly sparks between two wounded friends; a marriage ends for what seem like noble reasons, but with irreparable consequences; a young woman holds on to an impossible dream even as she fights for her survival; two lovers reunite after unimaginable tragedy, both for their country and in their lives; a baby's christening brings three generations of a family to a precarious dance between old and new; a man falls to his death in slow motion, reliving the defining moments of the life he is about to lose.
-
-
I liked it but I wanted to like it more than I did.
- By Nath G. on 07-11-20
By: Edwidge Danticat
-
The Farming of Bones
- By: Edwidge Danticat
- Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 1937 and Amabelle Desir, a young Haitian woman living in the Dominican Republic, has built herself a life as the servant and companion of the wife of a wealthy colonel. She and Sebastien, a cane worker, are deeply in love and plan to marry. But Amabelle's world collapses when a wave of genocidal violence, driven by Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo, leads to the slaughter of Haitian workers. Amabelle and Sebastien are separated, and she desperately flees the tide of violence for a Haiti she barely remembers.
-
-
Warning:
- By Kindle Customer on 01-22-20
By: Edwidge Danticat
-
Breath, Eyes, Memory
- By: Edwidge Danticat
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 6 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the age of 12, Sophie Caco is sent from her impoverished village of Croix-des-Rosets to New York, to be reunited with a mother she barely remembers. There she discovers secrets that no child should ever know and a legacy of shame that can be healed only when she returns to Haiti - to the women who first reared her. What ensues is a passionate journey through a landscape charged with the supernatural and scarred by political violence in a novel that bears witness to the traditions, suffering, and wisdom of an entire people.
-
-
Amazing Narrator
- By Luis on 04-03-16
By: Edwidge Danticat
-
Krik? Krak!
- By: Edwidge Danticat
- Narrated by: Miles & Graham
- Length: 4 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
American Book Award-winning author Edwidge Danticat earned a National Book Award nomination for this brilliant collection of stories, which includes the Pushcart Prize-winner "Between the Pool and the Gardenias". A remarkably gifted writer, Danticat examines the brutality of her native Haiti, particularly as it affects women, in tales that soar with raw emotion.
-
-
great, emotional
- By erika on 03-04-15
By: Edwidge Danticat
-
The Dew Breaker
- By: Edwidge Danticat
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 6 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the universally acclaimed author of Breath, Eyes, Memory and Krik? Krak!, a brilliant, deeply moving work of fiction that explores the world of a "dew breaker", a torturer, a man whose brutal crimes in the country of his birth lie hidden beneath his new American reality.
-
-
Almost, but not quite
- By Patricia on 06-15-04
By: Edwidge Danticat
-
Behind the Mountains
- By: Edwidge Danticat
- Narrated by: Ella Turenne
- Length: 3 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is election time in Haiti, and bombs are going off in the capital city of Port-au-Prince. During a visit from her home in rural Haiti, Celiane Esperance and her mother are nearly killed. Looking at her country with new eyes, Celiane gains a fresh resolve to be reunited with her father in Brooklyn, New York. The harsh winter and concrete landscape of her new home are a shock to Celiane, who witnesses her parents' struggle to earn a living and her brother's uneasy adjustment to American society, and at the same time encounters her own challenges with learning and school violence.
-
-
Beautiful
- By rv on 01-23-25
By: Edwidge Danticat
-
Everything Inside
- Stories
- By: Edwidge Danticat
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 6 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In these eight powerful, emotionally absorbing stories, a romance unexpectedly sparks between two wounded friends; a marriage ends for what seem like noble reasons, but with irreparable consequences; a young woman holds on to an impossible dream even as she fights for her survival; two lovers reunite after unimaginable tragedy, both for their country and in their lives; a baby's christening brings three generations of a family to a precarious dance between old and new; a man falls to his death in slow motion, reliving the defining moments of the life he is about to lose.
-
-
I liked it but I wanted to like it more than I did.
- By Nath G. on 07-11-20
By: Edwidge Danticat
-
The Farming of Bones
- By: Edwidge Danticat
- Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 1937 and Amabelle Desir, a young Haitian woman living in the Dominican Republic, has built herself a life as the servant and companion of the wife of a wealthy colonel. She and Sebastien, a cane worker, are deeply in love and plan to marry. But Amabelle's world collapses when a wave of genocidal violence, driven by Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo, leads to the slaughter of Haitian workers. Amabelle and Sebastien are separated, and she desperately flees the tide of violence for a Haiti she barely remembers.
-
-
Warning:
- By Kindle Customer on 01-22-20
By: Edwidge Danticat
-
Breath, Eyes, Memory
- By: Edwidge Danticat
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 6 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the age of 12, Sophie Caco is sent from her impoverished village of Croix-des-Rosets to New York, to be reunited with a mother she barely remembers. There she discovers secrets that no child should ever know and a legacy of shame that can be healed only when she returns to Haiti - to the women who first reared her. What ensues is a passionate journey through a landscape charged with the supernatural and scarred by political violence in a novel that bears witness to the traditions, suffering, and wisdom of an entire people.
-
-
Amazing Narrator
- By Luis on 04-03-16
By: Edwidge Danticat
-
Krik? Krak!
- By: Edwidge Danticat
- Narrated by: Miles & Graham
- Length: 4 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
American Book Award-winning author Edwidge Danticat earned a National Book Award nomination for this brilliant collection of stories, which includes the Pushcart Prize-winner "Between the Pool and the Gardenias". A remarkably gifted writer, Danticat examines the brutality of her native Haiti, particularly as it affects women, in tales that soar with raw emotion.
-
-
great, emotional
- By erika on 03-04-15
By: Edwidge Danticat
-
Create Dangerously
- The Immigrant Artist at Work
- By: Edwidge Danticat
- Narrated by: Kristin Kalbli
- Length: 4 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this deeply personal book, the celebrated Haitian-American writer Edwidge Danticat reflects on art and exile. Inspired by Albert Camus and adapted from her own lectures for Princeton University’s Toni Morrison Lecture Series, here Danticat tells stories of artists who create despite (or because of) the horrors that drove them from their homelands. Combining memoir and essay, these moving and eloquent pieces examine what it means to be an artist from a country in crisis.
-
-
A very important book.
- By Tyler on 12-07-19
By: Edwidge Danticat
-
The Art of Death
- Writing the Final Story
- By: Edwidge Danticat
- Narrated by: Edwidge Danticat
- Length: 4 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A moving reflection on a subject that touches us all, by the best-selling author of Claire of the Sea Light. Edwidge Danticat's The Art of Death: Writing the Final Story is at once a personal account of her mother dying from cancer and a deeply considered reckoning with the ways that other writers have approached death in their own work. A moving tribute and a work of astute criticism, The Art of Death is an audiobook that will profoundly alter all who encounter it.
-
-
The art of death
- By barbara stevens on 07-14-17
By: Edwidge Danticat
-
Harlem Shuffle
- A Novel
- By: Colson Whitehead
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 10 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
To his customers and neighbors on 125th street, Ray Carney is an upstanding salesman of reasonably priced furniture, making a decent life for himself and his family. He and his wife Elizabeth are expecting their second child, and if her parents on Striver's Row don't approve of him or their cramped apartment across from the subway tracks, it's still home. Few people know he descends from a line of uptown hoods and crooks, and that his façade of normalcy has more than a few cracks in it. Cracks that are getting bigger all the time.
-
-
Best Read/Listen on Audible
- By Henry Posner on 09-22-21
By: Colson Whitehead
-
The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida
- By: Shehan Karunatilaka
- Narrated by: Shivantha Wijesinha
- Length: 14 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Colombo, 1990. Maali Almeida—war photographer, gambler, and closet queen—has woken up dead in what seems like a celestial visa office. His dismembered body is sinking in the serene Beira Lake and he has no idea who killed him. In a country where scores are settled by death squads, suicide bombers, and hired goons, the list of suspects is depressingly long, as the ghouls and ghosts with grudges who cluster round can attest. But even in the afterlife, time is running out for Maali.
-
-
Absolutely Splendid...
- By Paul Frandano on 02-07-23
-
On the Rooftop
- A Novel
- By: Margaret Wilkerson Sexton
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 10 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At home they are just sisters, but on stage, they are The Salvations. Ruth, Esther, and Chloe have been singing and dancing in harmony since they could speak. Thanks to the rigorous direction of their mother, Vivian, they’ve become a bona fide girl group whose shows are the talk of the Jazz-era Fillmore.
-
-
Basic
- By Monique Leary on 05-15-23
-
The Star Side of Bird Hill
- By: Naomi Jackson
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 7 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Two sisters, ages 10 and 16, are exiled from Brooklyn to Bird Hill in Barbados, after their mother can no longer care for them. The young Phaedra and her older sister, Dionne, live, for the summer of 1989, with their grandmother, Hyacinth, a midwife and practitioner of the local spiritual practice of obeah. Dionne spends the summer in search of love, testing her grandmother's limits, and wanting to go home. Phaedra explores Bird Hill, where her family has lived for generations.
-
-
My absolute favorite book of all time
- By Eme on 07-16-15
By: Naomi Jackson
-
A Burning
- A Novel
- By: Megha Majumdar
- Narrated by: Vikas Adam, Priya Ayyar, Deepti Gupta, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jivan is a Muslim girl from the slums, determined to move up in life, who is accused of executing a terrorist attack on a train because of a careless comment on Facebook. PT Sir is an opportunistic gym teacher who hitches his aspirations to a right-wing political party and finds that his own ascent becomes linked to Jivan's fall. Lovely—an irresistible outcast whose exuberant voice and dreams of glory fill the novel with warmth and hope and humor—has the alibi that can set Jivan free, but it will cost her everything she holds dear.
-
-
Heartbreaking and Brilliantly Performed
- By David P on 07-28-20
By: Megha Majumdar
-
Under the Udala Trees
- By: Chinelo Okparanta
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Inspired by Nigeria's folktales and war, Under the Udala Trees is a deeply searching, powerful debut about the dangers of living and loving openly. Ijeoma comes of age as her nation does; born before independence, she is 11 when civil war breaks out in the young republic of Nigeria. Sent away to safety, she meets another displaced child, and the star-crossed pair fall in love. They are from different ethnic communities. They are also both girls.
-
-
Great Listen!
- By ayodele higgs on 12-05-15
-
Anna Karenina
- Penguin Classics
- By: Leo Tolstoy, Richard Pevear - translator, Larissa Volokhonsky - translator
- Narrated by: Miranda Pleasence
- Length: 36 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Anna Karenina seems to have everything - beauty, wealth, popularity and an adored son. But she feels that her life is empty until the moment she encounters the impetuous officer Count Vronsky. Their subsequent affair scandalizes society and family alike and soon brings jealously and bitterness in its wake. Contrasting with this tale of love and self-destruction is the vividly observed story of Levin, a man striving to find contentment and a meaning to his life - and also a self-portrait of Tolstoy himself.
-
-
Happy listeners are all alike
- By Reader on 12-12-20
By: Leo Tolstoy, and others
-
The Vibrant Years
- A Novel
- By: Sonali Dev, Mindy Kaling - introduction
- Narrated by: Deepti Gupta, Soneela Nankani, Anita Kalathara
- Length: 11 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When sixty-five-year-old Bindu Desai inherits a million dollars, she’s astounded—and horrified. The windfall threatens to expose a shameful mistake from her youth. On an impulse, Bindu quickly spends it on something unexpected: a condo in a posh retirement community in Florida. The impulsive decision blindsides Bindu’s daughter-in-law, Aly. At forty-seven, Aly still shares a home with Bindu even after her divorce from Bindu’s son. But maybe this change is just the push Aly needs to fight for her own dreams.
-
-
Strong and loveable characters
- By Jeanne Wang on 12-11-22
By: Sonali Dev, and others
-
Buried Beneath the Baobab Tree
- By: Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani, Viviana Mazza - afterword
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 5 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A new pair of shoes, a university degree, a husband - these are the things a girl dreams of in a Nigerian village. And with a government scholarship right around the corner, everyone can see these dreams aren’t too far out of reach. But the girl’s dreams turn to nightmares when her village is attacked by Boko Haram, a terrorist group, in the middle of the night. Kidnapped, she is taken with other girls and women into the forest, where she is forced to follow her captors’ radical beliefs and watch as her best friend slowly accepts everything she’s been told.
-
-
Captivating
- By Amanda Butler on 01-09-21
By: Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani, and others
-
Interior Chinatown
- A Novel
- By: Charles Yu
- Narrated by: Joel de la Fuente
- Length: 4 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Willis Wu doesn’t perceive himself as a protagonist even in his own life: He’s merely Generic Asian man. Sometimes he gets to be Background Oriental Making a Weird Face or even Disgraced Son, but he is always relegated to a prop. Yet every day he leaves his tiny room in a Chinatown SRO and enters the Golden Palace restaurant, where Black and White, a procedural cop show, is in perpetual production. He’s a bit player here, too, but he dreams of being Kung Fu Guy - the most respected role that anyone who looks like him can attain. At least that’s what he has been told.
-
-
Kong Fu Guy
- By JCY on 01-30-20
By: Charles Yu
What listeners say about Claire of the Sea Light
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jennifer
- 02-01-15
An insight into the life in Haiti
I had a hard time getting into this book at first. It's very detailed and descriptive and I found it hard to connect to the characters in the first section. Then as it moved on to the second set of characters, it felt more like a set of short stories before I figured out that each story was interconnected with another story somehow. Then I wanted to know how everyone was connected, and wanted to solve the mysteries that were slowing being told.
I loved all the French/Creole in the book. I love the language and can understand French well, so it was nice to have it weaved into the story. (**Note: The narration by Robin Miles certainly helps to comb through the way these words are spelled or pronounced. My friends who read the kindle or paperback book, especially those without a knowledge in French, had a tough time sounding out the oddly spelled words.)
And while I may not know much about Haiti or the people there, I enjoyed how the author included a wide variety of characters and stories.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- FanB14
- 09-15-13
Claire Shines, Other Characters Not So Much
A young Haitian girl is born on the same day her mother passes and raised by a father who wasn't sure he wanted to be a parent from the start. While he loves her, he grapples with the decision to let the village fabric shop owner keep her as she has lost her own daughter and can provide more opportunities than the poor fisherman.
Beautiful, brief, and honest novel explores the question of what it means to be a parent from mother's, father's, and a friend's (who ran away from fatherhood only to be smacked into reality later) point of view. The beginning was well written, but the middle diverged course with an inconsequential character loosely threaded to the story. The last 1/4 of the book returned to original form with a satisfying ending.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
7 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- ladybyrd
- 01-13-19
Sea Light
Moving, rhythmic and totally captivating. Loved the way, the sections intertwined and pulled apart. A wonderfully beautiful story.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- drtimmie
- 07-14-20
Beautiful but Hampered by Desultory Pacing
Beautifully written and read. This is literature as opposed to a mere book. It tone is poetic. It makes the reader feel like they have visited Haiti.
However, each chapter is a short story revolving around Claire that describes life in a small Haitian town There are enough stories that the main character is village of Ville Rose. It is difficult to emotionally invest yourself in any other character when you know the focus and their story won't last long. There is often a sense of being wrenched out of a enjoyable tale when a new chapter and a new narrative start.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- S.
- 06-03-15
Wonderful!
Robin Miles did great with the narration. The story was very emotional and I found myself tearing up a few times. At the heart of it, "Claire" looks at what it means to be a parent, a child and to sacrifice and who benefits or hurts from that sacrifice the most. Overall, I recommend it but I agree with some of the other reviews on here that the ending was rather anti-climatic. I was waiting for a wrap up or a point to it all but in the end, I was left with just a beautiful story.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jessica
- 04-14-18
what beautiful, rich, authentic characters. a lovely portrait of interconnection and what it's like to share life and struggle through it with those who happen to be your neighbors. And as always, Robin Miles works her magic to deliver a flawless performance
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Judy
- 11-11-14
I didn't get it
And I wasn't the only one. This was a pick in my book club. The stories were interesting and kept me listening but, in the end, I thought there would be a moral or big picture or larger meaning and there wasn't. It was good for some discussion and it was interesting how each of us perceived parts of the stories differently. None of us hated it just no one would recommend that anyone run out and read it.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- D. Stokes
- 09-26-22
Dissatisfaction
This story was several stories without connection that never blended together. I selected the story because Robin Miles was narrator. But the story never drew me to it. I am very disappointed in the ending, I thought the author would try to bring it together but alas NOT!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!