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Edwidge Danticat
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The Farming of Bones Paperback – September 1, 1999

by Edwidge Danticat (Author)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 729 ratings
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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.

Previous page
  1. Print length
    312 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Penguin Books
  4. Publication date
    September 1, 1999
  5. Reading age
    18 years and up
  6. Dimensions
    5.2 x 0.62 x 7.9 inches
  7. ISBN-10
    0140280499
  8. ISBN-13
    978-0140280494
  9. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Edwidge Danticat was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in 1969. Her parents emigrated to New York when she was a small child, while she and her brother remained in Haiti, where they were raised by an aunt and uncle. At the age of twelve she moved to Brooklyn to be with her parents.

Danticat began writing as a teenager, and her essays and stories have appeared in many periodicals. She received a degree in French literature from Barnard College and an MFA in writing from Brown University. At Brown she completed work on Breath, Eyes, Memory, which she had begun as an undergraduate, and the novel was published in 1994. After finishing her master's degree, Danticat worked in Clinica Estetico, the production office of film director Jonathan Demme, who has a consuming interest in Haiti. She read and wrote scripts and continues to monitor and occasionally protest American policy in Haiti. In late 1994, Danticat returned to Haiti for the first time in thirteen years, to see President Aristide restored to power.

Danticat is the recipient of a James Michener Fellowship and awards from Seventeen magazine and from Essence. She is also the author of a collection of Haitian stories, Krik? Krak!, which was a National Book Award finalist. She lives in New York City.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin Books (September 1, 1999)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 312 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0140280499
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0140280494
  • Reading age ‏ : ‎ 18 years and up
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 3.2 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.2 x 0.62 x 7.9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 729 ratings

About the author

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Edwidge Danticat

Edwidge Danticat

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Edwidge Danticat was born in Haiti in 1969 and came to the United States when she was twelve years old. She graduated from Barnard College and received an M.F.A. from Brown University. She made an auspicious debut with her first novel, Breath, Eyes, Memory, and followed it with the story collection Krik? Krak!, whose National Book Award nomination made Danticat the youngest nominee ever. She lives in New York.

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
729 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Savvy-Suz
5.0 out of 5 stars Breaking Bones.....
Reviewed in the United States on September 19, 2008
Verified Purchase
Sad, but stunningly beautiful, FARMING OF THE BONES is a powerfully written evocative account of the horror of the genocide committed in 1937 against poor Haitian cane workers and others by the Dominican General Rafael Trujillo.

Through the voice of a young orphaned Haitian woman, Amabelle Desir, we follow the lives of desperate Haitian exiles working the Dominican cane fields in deplorable conditions with paltry wages and sparse living conditions.

Danticat is a master storyteller and her prose lifts and carries, even as the atrocities of what she is telling unfold on the page. She travels a very painful path with humbling grace. She allows the reader to witness grave injustices while keeping them safely wrapped in her beautiful and poignant prose.
.
Dreaming... remembering...and family are strong elements which serve to enrich the story and draw the reader in as the reality of the despair becomes readily
apparent. Trujillo wants to 'whiten' his populace and thus begins the recounting of an unimaginable and shocking ethnic cleansing.

Towards the end of the novel, a man says "Famous men never truly die... It is only those nameless and faceless who vanish like smoke in the early morning air." ...on the island which Haiti and The Dominican Republic share. Through the eyes of the narrator, Amabelle working as a maid in the Dominican Republic, we see scores of Haitians cruely massacred.
None of those killed is anyone famous, nearly all the slaughtered are poor Haitians working as cheap labor in the neighboring country, but Amabelle's story serves to refute those words spoken about the nameless and faceless of the earth.

In this book, they are remembered, and in her story they do have names and faces.
10 people found this helpful
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Bob Gilstein
5.0 out of 5 stars A moving experience
Reviewed in the United States on May 23, 2022
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The first third of this novel is a setup for the rest of it. The intensely personal story, told in the first person, of a Haitian woman who survived Trujillo's 1937 massacre of Haitians working in the Dominican Republic in 1937. It may be fiction, but it feels real. The writing gets better and better, with quite a bit of simple yet profound philosophy. By the end, I realized this is one of the most beautifully written novels I have ever read.
A moving experience.
One person found this helpful
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ReactingtoLit
4.0 out of 5 stars Exploring the Conflict between Haiti and the Dominican Republic
Reviewed in the United States on January 2, 2016
Verified Purchase
Historical fiction examining the 1937 genocidal attacks on the Haitian citizens living in the Dominican Republic. The story is well crafted, includes a lot of poetic language, and maintains a credible examination of the historical era. While reading the story, I learned a lot about a historical event.
3 people found this helpful
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Priscilla Stilwell
5.0 out of 5 stars Painfully beautiful historical fiction
Reviewed in the United States on August 21, 2013
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The range of Haitian literature is considerably limited, and primarily consists of books by "outsiders" (those not of Haitian blood who have not lived there for any considerable length of time), and books by Haitian immigrants, with a smattering of poetry and transcribed stories and memoires preserved from Haiti proper.

Danticat writes one of the most lovely portrayals of the dynamics between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, which share an island and have engaged in conflict since before the independence of Haiti. The author is able to paint a picture that does not seem to me to take sides, but simply states the reality of what happened through the fictional lives of the characters. I am interested in the way that the relationships between the Haitians and Dominicans are not always strained, and sometimes are extremely close, but those relationships are challenged in the middle of the political strains.

I highly recommend this book for those who appreciate good historical fiction, and those who are interested in Haiti and relations in the Caribbean, as well as those interested in literary contributions from the minority and immigrant populations of the U.S.
15 people found this helpful
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Lee Dorough
5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful and heartbreaking
Reviewed in the United States on April 19, 2021
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I think that Edwidge Danticat is a great writer, if not one of the best! I have been going to Haiti on medical missions for 17 years. The people and the stories will always be on my heart, along with Edwige's books. She captures the heart and soul of Haiti.
2 people found this helpful
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Renee C. Ozer
3.0 out of 5 stars Haiti's long history of misery
Reviewed in the United States on April 27, 2010
Verified Purchase
I wanted a book on Haiti to learn more about the country, an interest stimulated by the recent earthquake. And I'd never heard of the 1937 Parsley Massacre, where Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo ordered the execution of Haitians in the Dominican marches. Machetes were primarily used so the government could later plausibly deny that it was involved, claiming instead that Dominican peasants used machetes to defend themselves against rampaging Haitians. In an eerie echo of Judges 12:6, where the word "shibboleth" distinguished Gileadites from Ephraimites and the slaughter of 42,000 of the latter is celebrated, dark-skinned captives were ordered to say "perejil" ("parsley" in Spanish). Neither Haitian Creole nor French uses a trilled "r." If they couldn't correctly roll the "r", they were killed.

However, while I enjoyed the book, the evoked emotions and sensations were muted; I think there was too much emphasis on symbolism and foreshadowing and not enough on conveying the foreboding and sheer terror of these events. (Although the scene where a Dominican officer rejects his newborn daughter because of her dark skin was exquisitely rendered.) And the ending is anticlimactic - a long way of saying you can't go home again.
3 people found this helpful
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Ignis17
5.0 out of 5 stars Harsh reality
Reviewed in the United States on September 26, 2018
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This story was recommended to me, by someone I adore deeply. I decided to give it a read, and to my surprise I enjoyed every bit of it from the horrifying moments to the liberating ones. I would definitely recommend this book.
2 people found this helpful
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nancy
5.0 out of 5 stars Great story writing
Reviewed in the United States on June 20, 2020
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This author is everything the book really takes you on a mental ride where you tap into everybody word and feel every emotion.
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Top reviews from other countries

Kindle Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful historical fiction
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 20, 2023
Verified Purchase
Carefully plotting the life of a girl whose coming of age is set against the horrific backdrop of the 1937 Parsley Massacre, Edwidge Danticat has once again gifted us with a moving probing tale, this time of perhaps the Caribbean's most unreconciled tragedy of the 20th century, around which was cloaked a taboo-like silence until the 2013 echoes were evident. Through Amabelle Désir an orphaned girl semi-adopted by wealthy Dominicans in the 1920s, we glimpse the fates of her partner Sébastien, a scarred cane cutter determined to find a way to a better, happier life, his friends and co-workers Joel and Yves, Joel's father Kongo, Sébastien's sister Mimi, his mother Man Denise, and Yves' mother Man R. Their lives are all upturned and end as they've known them. The Dominicans with whom some of them live side by side are also deeply affected, sympathetic priests and doctors are destroyed, and those not actively engaging in the genocidal craze or against it are forced to hide their actions from those closest to them. The Farming of Bones is wonderfully respectful of the lives lost. It does not offer gratuitous violence, nor simplistic heroes and villains. Danticat slowly builds a chilling tension in a small village community in the Dominican Republic, where settled migrant workers of Haitian origin are accustomed to - if unhappy with - life as second class citizens whether Haitian-born or 3rd generation Dominicans who are monolingual Spanish speakers. She illustrates the nuance and life-saving imperative of ascertaining when widespread prejudice turns genocidal, and the impact of policy on everyday lives. Crucially, as the world does not stop turning when horror ends, the novel continues. We see the impact of the tragedy as people struggle to anticipate it, live through it, survive it, retain their sanity and humanity after it, rebuild their lives with or without loved ones, and mourn or try to find those lost. Skillfully, Danticat takes us decades into the future revealing both the immediate and longer term impact of the Massacre, and the myriad ways people recall and make meaning of it, and even the number of names given to the horror. It is a truly unusual gift to depict the worst of humanity with deep care, beauty and respect for those who suffered most, while reminding us that carnage always extends far beyond its intended targets. This is an incredible achievement of a novel, a wonderful read, and reparative historical fiction at its very best.
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Mr P R Heckingbottom
5.0 out of 5 stars Dominican Republic Experience?
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 27, 2015
Verified Purchase
Was going to the Dominican Republic for the first time so wanted to read a novel which was appropriate to get a feel for the history of this country. Great book. Was intrigued from start to finish. Was disappointed it didn't have a happy ending! (Sorry!)
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Acton Bell
5.0 out of 5 stars An inpsirational read
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 21, 2012
Verified Purchase
I read this book in preparation for mission trip to the Dominican Republic. It is a heart breaking, moving tale of the struggle to survive in a country ravaged by civil unrest. It helped me to understand the political situation of a beautiful country.
One person found this helpful
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Rosemary Brown
5.0 out of 5 stars I found this book enlightening and moving
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 9, 2014
Verified Purchase
It is about events I knew nothing about, and although painful to read the author evokes the Caribbean very authentically
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