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Usually ships in 1 business days | | | From the bestselling author of Breath, Eyes, Memory, a passionate and profound novel of two lovers struggling against political violence
The Farming of Bones begins in 1937 in a village on the Dominican side of the river that separates the country from Haiti. Amabelle Desir, Haitian-born and a faithful maidservant to the Dominican family that took her in when she was orphaned, and her lover Sebastien, an itinerant sugarcane cutter, decide they will marry and return to Haiti at the end of the cane season. However, hostilities toward Haitian laborers find a vitriolic spokesman in the ultra-nationalist Generalissimo Trujillo who calls for an ethnic cleansing of his Spanish-speaking country. As rumors of Haitian persecution become fact, as anxiety turns to terror, Amabelle and Sebastien's dreams are leveled to the most basic human desire: to endure. Based on a little-known historical event, this extraordinarily moving novel memorializes the forgotten victims of nationalist madness and the deeply felt passion and grief of its survivors.
* New York Times Notable Book
* Named one of the Best Books of the Year by People, Entertainment Weekly, Chicago Tribune, Time Out New York, Publishers Weekly, and the American Library Association
* The author was nominated for a National Book Award and named one of the "20 Best Young Novelists" by Granta
"A remarkable new novel . . . Danticat writes in wonderful, evocative prose, and she is especially adept at treading the path between oppression and grace. At times, it's a particularly painful path, but, always, a compelling one." --The Boston Sunday Globe
"[With] hallucinatory vigor and a sense of mission . . . Danticat capably evokes the shock with which a small personal world is disrupted by military mayhem . . . The Farming of Bones offers ample confirmation of Edwidge Danticat's considerable talents." --The New York Times Book Review
"It's a testament to her talent that the novel, while almost unbearably sad, is still a joy to read." --Newsweek
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| | Product Details | | Author: | Edwidge Danticat | | Paperback: | 320 pages | | Publisher: | Penguin (Non-Classics) | | Publication Date: | September 01, 1999 | | ISBN: | 0140280499 | | Package Length: | 7.7 inches | | Package Width: | 5.4 inches | | Package Height: | 0.6 inches | | Package Weight: | 0.35 pounds | | Average Customer Rating: |  based on 59 reviews |
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 Excellent Service! Jul 13, 2008
This book came in great condition and quicker than they told me! This is a great service! You won't be disappointed.
 A Woman's Odyssey Feb 10, 2008
The heroine of The Farming of Bones is a young girl named Amabelle who, we learn, was left behind in the Dominican Republic when her parents are drowned in the Massacre River. The family that takes Amabelle in as a domestic servant finds her there on the riverbank, a little girl with bleeding knees. Later, when Amabelle is suddenly offered a chance to return to Haiti by Dr. Javier, a kind man who envisions a role for her at a clinic on the other side of the border, we are drawn into a long journey. Her conversations in darkness with her lover Sebastien, who works in the cane fields, confront the bittern dilemma of their lives:
"Sometimes the people in the fields, when they're tired and angry, they say we're an orphaned people," he said. "They say we are the burnt crud at the bottom of the pot. They say some people don't belong anywhere and that's us. I say we are a group of vwayajè, wayfarers."
Amabelle recalls her childhood near Cap Haitien where she spent hours playing in the Citadel, from which she peered out at the sea. "From the safety of these rooms I saw the entire northern cape; the yellow-green mountains, the rice valley, the king's palace... the queen's court across the meadow." Space, freedom, and possibility once claimed in the era of the Haitian Revolution have, thus, entered the psyche of Amabelle and remain alive in her consciousness.
But her real-world struggle is full of obstacles. There is a rumor emerging that Generalissimo Rafael Trujillo wants to get rid of any Haitian not working in a cane mill. A Haitian woman in Amabelle's village expresses anxiety about not having any "papers in my palms to say where I belong." Amabelle, too, feels displaced and fearful. "I had no papers to show that I belonged either here or in Haiti where I was born."
As the story evolves, General Trujillo's army turns on the Haitian people, committing atrocities that are unforgotten to this day. Amabelle escapes, miraculously, to the other side with a friend, Yves. Many friends die in the process and her beloved Sebastien is lost forever. The passages of their imagined communication are like prose poems injected into the darkness of this novel.
This is a love story and a woman's odyssey. It holds the history of Haiti within its pages and the whispers the possibility of a better time in measured, evocative prose. In the end, the "place to lay it down" is the Massacre River itself. Danticat leads us to the water's edge with Amabelle. Like an artery running though the body of a nation, it is the source of life and memory that carries us forward.
A beautiful book.
3 of 6 found the following review helpful:
Two Languages, Two Countries, Two People, One Island Dec 08, 2007
Edwidge Danticat's powerful story about the 1937 massacre of Haitians in the Dominican Republic on the orders of dictator Rafael Trujillo resonates in these times of increased awareness of genocides throughout the world. In direct language but lyrical structure, Danticat offers an intimate account of a woman caught between two worlds, one by birth and one by adoption.
The narrator, Amabelle, is a young Haitian woman who lives as a servant in a wealthy Dominican household. Taken in by this family after witnessing the drowning of her parents, Amabelle has grown up with her mistress, Senor Valencia, and they are fast friends - at least, as much as their different social standings will allow. Valencia marries Pico, an officer in the Dominican army, and Amabelle falls in love with Sebastien, an outspoken sugar cane cutter and would-be rebel. Sebastien views the unfolding tensions between the two ethnic groups with clear eyes and tries to convince Amabelle that they are in danger. When Amabelle finally accepts this truth, she makes plans to escape the imminent slaughter, even then not believing that it will really happen. What she witnesses and what she must do to survive changes her forever.
Danticat uses the imagery of duality to illustrate the segregation, the dangers of division, and the unseen unity in this country. For example, Valencia's twins (one named after Trujillo himself) represent the Dominican and the Haitians sides of the country, one light and one dark, born from the same parents. Ironically, Valencia's husband, one of the officers in charge of carrying out the slaughter, supplies the "dark" genes in his own daughter. Readers who want to look deeper into the story will find many examples of duality, irony, and water imagery.
Recommended companion books: In the Time of the Butterflies, Drown, Breath, Eyes, Memory (Oprah's Book Club).
2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
Moved... Jan 11, 2007
This was the first book I read from this author and I can tell you, it will not be the last. The writing is amazing. This author has an amazing gift with imagery! She will make you see (and feel) what she is writing about as if you are there in the story. It simply took my breath away! A must read. Tears came from my eyes as I read the last few lines in the book. The story captivated me.
3 of 3 found the following review helpful:
"The Farming of Bones" is a chronological work of art. Dec 12, 2006
Danticat moves beyond the stream of consciousness of "Krick Krack" and takes us on a voyage to the Dominican Republic and opens our hearts to the drama of a terrifyingly real era of hatred personified. Moving away from the quiet life of a plantation type existence.
The novel lands us in a holocaust situation where the host country becomes murderous and ravenous. The exciting adventure builds from a quiet from a pastoral love story into a fight for survival of Annabelle, the main character, who will be caught in your mind for days afterwards. Sebastien and Annabelle make an adoring couple, even though they are so young. Danticat masterfully evokes the atmosphere of hatred and terror of the massacre of Haitians by Dominicans through the eyes of Amabelle, who at the same time have only a few memories of her childhood and is incredibly uncertain future.
I thought this book was an excellent representation of how life was treated back in 1937 in the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Not only was this a pure love story, but it was so factual and real. Danticat does an excellent job with her writing this novel, and deserves an applause. This book was touching and gripping at the same time. As a Haitian American I have always had an interest in understanding the history and problems which exist and have existed in Haiti, but in reading several texts I often find that the language of the genre is often uninteresting. For me Danticat changes that, she takes a historical event in Haitian history and structures it magnificently through the eyes of her young female character. I am glad that there is someone like Ms. Danticat in the literary world to help young Haitians like myself gain a better understanding of Haiti and its culture.
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