In Memoriam Danielle Legros Georges, She Who Wrote with Fire in Her Pen
February 20, 2025
By Catherine Tung and Perpetua Cannistraro
Editor’s note: It was with extraordinary sadness that we learned that our author, Danielle Legros Georges, passed away in her Dorchester home on February 11 after a years-long battle with stage-four breast cancer. Her partner, Tom Laughlin, and her brothers, Gerard, Bernard, and Stephan, were with her. We are honored to have published her final book, Three Leaves, Three Roots, and will find ways in the coming days, weeks, and beyond to celebrate the Poet laureate of Boston (2015-2019) and her work. Her editor, Catherine Tung, and her publicist, Perpetua Cannistraro, pay tribute to her here.
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As Danielle’s editor, I got to know her primarily through the documents we sent back and forth—the edited manuscripts, author questionnaires, cover design notes, blurb requests, and other written tasks that go into a book. Through it all, she was unfailingly patient, charming, intelligent, and artful. Yet what shone through more than anything was a quietly revolutionary spirit, forged in steel. In response to the author questionnaire prompt “How would you like to be addressed by Beacon staff?” she put:
“She who writes with fire in her pen and fierceness in her heart in every third instance, but otherwise Danielle.”
When Danielle and I eventually met face to face, I found that her quiet power was all the more present in person. And that power lives on in her work, which taught me a chapter of history that I find endlessly inspiring and will always carry with me.
—Catherine Tung, editor
I could tell that Danielle was a voracious learner the moment I met her at the Omni Parker House for lunch one sunny afternoon in July.
As we settled into our booth, she leaned in and whispered excitedly, “Did you know that Malcolm X used to be a server here at Parker’s Restaurant?” She pointed to a table behind us. “It’s rumored that John F. Kennedy proposed to Jackie Onassis at that corner table.”
Her intelligence and perceptiveness were on display the whole afternoon. Danielle and I gabbed all lunch to the slight dismay of our server, who had to return to our table twice to take our order because we’d never picked up a menu. Such was our instant connection over literature, our shared Haitian heritage, and our curiosity about one another’s careers, hers in academia and mine in book publishing.
I was excited to meet a dedicated scholar and poet whose past encompassed equal parts Motherland and Diaspora. Ever since leaving home, I could feel the Motherland part of my life slipping away. I was born a second-generation Haitian American. Most of my life, I was assimilated into white America. I’d recently married the love of my life, a white man. As time passed, I felt increased pressure to carry on my family’s heritage. I wasn’t sure I could keep my culture alive and pass it on to my children one day. Toward the end of our lunch, I took a chance and shared this fear with her.
Danielle looked at me. Her eyes conveyed compassion but they also gleamed with a fierceness I hadn’t seen throughout the meal.
She told me that what defines a Haitian is the pursuit of freedom. That pursuit has marked our country’s entire two-hundred-plus-year history and is the thing all of our lives represent. She said the freedom to determine our own futures and to tell our own stories, and the desire to do so, resides in the heart of every Haitian. She told me that if I passed that down to my children, I would be giving them the very essence of our culture.
Three Leaves, Three Roots is a gorgeous and lasting testament to this idea. Danielle worked hard to ensure that this little-known chapter of Haiti’s history, tied so closely with the Congo’s, made it into the annals of time. She interviewed her parents, their friends, and others who participated in the transnational movement of the 1960s and 70s in order to make this moment come alive. She gave voice to women so often silenced in favor of Haiti’s terrifying and powerful men. And she told the story beautifully. We are lucky to be able to travel Danielle’s imagination to visit this era of Haitian life. Danielle’s work serves to set Haitians free from the darkness of fear-filled stereotypes and shines a magnificent light on the diversity of Haiti’s population. Her words inspire me to embody that drive for freedom that makes me Haitian—that makes me human.
—Perpetua Cannistraro, publicist
About the Authors
Catherine Tung joined Beacon Press in late 2019 after seven years at Vintage Books, where she acquired in memoir, fiction, and nonfiction titles on politics, disability, cultural studies, and mental health. At Beacon, she is actively developing a list focused on oral history, urban planning, sexuality, and Asian American writing. Outside the office, she enjoys musicmaking, community building, knitting, gardening, and friendly debates over bourbon.
Perpetua Cannistraro joined Beacon Press in 2015. She is a graduate of Florida Southern College and earned her MA in Publishing and Writing from Emerson College. Perpetua has extensive publicity experience in the areas of race and culture, memoir, education, and history. Some of her favorite things include the Lord, TV, Disney princesses, books, 90s-00s teen pop, and the color pink. Connect with her on Instagram at @perpetuathepublicist.