The Farming of Bones [Hardcover]

Edwidge Danticat (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1998

LARGE PRINT

Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Soho; First Printing edition (1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786217324
• ISBN-13: 978-0786217328
• ASIN: B000J539FO
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (68 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,272,930 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

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

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Farming of the Bones, July 16, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Farming of Bones (Paperback)

This short novel was a real eye opener for me, before I picked it up I'd never heard about the government ordered massacre of approx. 30,000 Haitians in the Dominican Republic in 1937. Danticat is truly a gifted writer. The story, told by an orphaned Haitian servant is as lyrical as it is tragic and is definitely worth picking up.

29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Extraordinarily Artful and Highly Successful, August 1, 2003

By 

Alan Cambeira "author of Azucar's Trilogy" (Dominican Republic, author of Tattered Paradise...Azucar's Trilogy Ends) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Farming of Bones (Paperback)

Danticat's debut with BREAT, EYES, MEMORY was more than impressive; it was magical and eloquently resonant. It was the voice we'd all been waiting for. But with THE FARMING OF BONES, what we have is Danticat's finely-tuned clarity of vision reaching the heights of authentic folk art. This novel is unforgettably vibrant in every regard. Entire seminars and workshops have rightfully been organized and presented around this literary icon. Edwidge Danticat is the single topic of scholarly discourse everywhere you turn, whether nationally or internationally. In THE FARMING OF BONES the author has masterfully returned us to a particularly shameful and hideous moment in the history of the neighboring countries of Haiti and the Dominican Republic (sharing the Caribbean island called Hispaniola).

Dominican Dictator Rafael Leónidas Trujillo in 1937 ordered the slaughter of an estimated (historically documented) 40,000 Haitians and Domínico-Haitians living and working in the Dominican Republic. This historical incident is virtually unknown to outsiders and to most people not of that era. Danticate has thankfully unearthed enough skeletons form the unknown graves to awaken the interest of today's generation, wherever they reside. But this is also a profound love story like no other you've read. The young protagonists Amabelle Desir and Sebastian Onius allow themselves to experience an all-powerful love in a land where love itself had been vanquished by brutal terror and unbridled hatred. This is truly a novel that rewards he reader over and over with the message of a people's suffering and unbelievable courage. If you haven't read this novel, you are denying yourself a genuine literary treasure.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A clear voice among the madness, November 24, 1998

By 

Linda Linguvic (New York City) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Farming of Bones (Hardcover)

The rhythm of the author's words ring with the cadence of the Caribbean and her voice is clear, wise and poetic. Written in the first person, the young woman, Amabelle, uses simple and deep cutting words to tell her story. Her words are sensual when describing her man, wise as she helps deliver the baby of the wealthy Dominican woman for whom she works as a servant; and deeply cutting as she flees from the slaughter and bears witness to the events going on around her.

I was moved and horrified, and was right there in her emotions as she simply told this story which takes place during the dictator, Trujillo's regime. Dominicans who tried to fight this madness met the same fate as the Haitians as their world, too, crumbled about them. Reading this book, I felt as deeply for the Haitians as I do for the sufferings of the Jews in the Holocaust, or the Cambodians who died on the killing fields.

I must say though, that in spite of the horror, the book is a pleasure to

read because it is a little gem of good writing. It also opened my mind to a period in history that I had no knowledge of and raised the kinds of issues that need exploring.