These include novels like The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon, Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok, and La Linea by Ann Jarmillo.Zoboi’s powerful debut, set in current-day Detroit (but based on the author’s experience as a Haitian immigrant in 1980s Bushwick, Brooklyn), unflinchingly tackles contemporary issues of immigration, assimilation, violence, and drug dealing. More broadly, American Street can be grouped with a number of young adult novels that focus on the immigrant experience in the United States. She was inspired by Edwidge Danticat, specifically her short story collection Krik, Krak and her novel Breath, Eyes, Memory. Zoboi is one of many emerging Haitian American authors writing today. In both Elizabeth Acevedo’s The Poet X and The Dangerous Art of Blending In by Angelo Surmelis, for instance, the protagonists’ mothers abuse them for not being devout enough. Religious elements in young adult books are becoming increasingly common, though many don’t present religion in the positive light that American Street does. In interviews, Zoboi has said that it’s important to her to write young adult novels that feature Haiti and that focus on faith-as a young reader, she herself wanted to read about teens grappling with their religion. Zoboi lives in New Jersey with her husband and three children.
She began to publish short stories about a decade earlier and was even named a finalist for the New Visions Award while still in grad school. While 2017’s American Street was Zoboi’s first novel, she attracted acclaim long before publishing it. After marrying her husband, Joseph Zoboi, she changed her name to Ibi Zoboi. She attended the Vermont College of Fine Arts, where she received an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults. As a young adult, Zoboi worked in a bookstore and for a newspaper. This jumpstarted Zoboi’s writing career, as she turned to writing poetry to cope with being misunderstood and underestimated.
Her mother finally got Zoboi back to New York three months later, but when Zoboi started fifth grade upon her return, her teacher assumed she didn’t speak English and put her in an English as a second language class. At one point in Zoboi’s childhood, she and her mother visited Haiti-but Zoboi wasn’t allowed to return to the U.S. Her childhood was lonely, since her mother worked and left Zoboi home alone. At age four, Zoboi immigrated to New York City with her mother, a move that Zoboi has said defines who she is.
Ibi Zoboi was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, as Pascale Philanthrope.
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