Farming of Bones Author:Edwidge Danticat In 1937, Rafael Trujillo, President of the Dominican Republic, decided to rid his country of the many Haitians who worked in the cane fields. The characters here are fiction but the story is not. Amabell Desirt is a young Haitian orphaned at age eight and rescued by a Dominican family where she later becomes a maid. She is in love with a cane ... more »worker on a nearby farm. When she fears that the army has taken him, she gathers her few belongings and begins the long trek over the mountains in hopes of meeting him across the Dominican/Haitian border. What follows is a story of heartbreak, despair and terror. It is also a story of love, barbarity, dignity, and the only triumph possible for the persecuted: to endure. "Ms. Danticat has successfully balanced what could have simply been a tale of woe with the redeeming power of bearing witness...eye-opening and delicately written." (New York Times Book Review)« less
"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. " This is an Amazon reviewer's review that mirrors mine.