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It is 1937 and Amabelle Désir, a young Haitian woman living in the Dominican Republic, has built herself a life as the servant and companion of the wife of a wealthy colonel. She and Sebastien, a cane worker, are deeply in love and plan to marry. But Amabelle's world collapses when a wave of genocidal violence, driven by Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo, leads to the slaughter of Haitian workers. Amabelle and Sebastien are separated, and she desperately flees the tide of violence for a Haiti she barely remembers.
Already acknowledged as a classic, this harrowing story of love and survival—from one of the most important voices of her generation—is an unforgettable memorial to the victims of the Parsley Massacre and a testimony to the power of human memory.
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Review:
In a 1930s Dominican Republic village, the scream of a woman in labor rings out like the shot heard around Hispaniola. Every detail of the birth scene--the balance of power between the middle-aged Señora and her Haitian maid, the babies' skin color, not to mention which child is to survive--reverberates throughout Edwidge Danticat's Farming of Bones. In fact, rather than a celebration of fecundity, the unexpected double delivery gels into a metaphor for the military-sponsored mass murder of Haitian emigrants. As the Señora's doctor explains: "Many of us start out as twins in the belly and do away with the other."
From the Publisher:
But Danticat's powerful second novel is far from a currently modish victimization saga, and can hold its own with such modern classics as One Hundred Years of Solitude and The Color Purple. Its watchful narrator, the Señora's shy Haitian housemaid, describes herself as "one of those sea stones that sucks its colors inside and loses its translucence once it's taken out into the sun." An astute observer of human character, Amabelle Désir is also a conduit for the author's tart, poetic prose. Her lover, Sebastian, has "arms as wide as one of my bare thighs," while the Señora's complicit officer husband is "still shorter than the average man, even in his military boots."
The orphaned Amabelle comes to assume almost messianic proportions, but she is entirely fictional, as is the town of Alegría where the tale begins. The genocide and exodus, however, are factual. Indeed, the atrocities committed by Dominican president Rafael Trujillo's army back in 1937 rival those of Duvalier's Touton Macoutes. History has rendered Trujillo's carnage much less visible than Duvalier's, but no less painful. As Amabelle's father once told her, "Misery won't touch you gentle. It always leaves its thumbprints on you; sometimes it leaves them for others to see, sometimes for nobody but you to know of." Thanks to Danticat's stellar novel, the world will now know. --Jean Lenihan
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- PublisherSoho Press
- Publication date2013
- ISBN 10 1616953497
- ISBN 13 9781616953492
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages336
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The Farming of Bones by Danticat, Edwidge [Paperback ]
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Book Description Softcover. Condition: new. ReviewPraise for The Farming of BonesA New York Times Notable BookALA Booklist Editors Choice"One of the Best Books of the Year"-Publishers Weekly"Heartrending."-Walter Mosely, Entertainment Weekly"A powerful, haunting novel . every chapter cuts deep, and you feel it."-TimeDanticat . is a brilliant storyteller. Her language is simple, gorgeous, and enticing. Her perfect pacing and seamless narrative . make each characters destiny seem inexorable.-Time Out New York[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 Danticats considerable talents.-The New York Times Book ReviewA passionate story . Richly textured, deeply personal details particularize each of Danticats characters and give poignancy to their lives. Often, her tales take on the quality of a legend.-The Seattle TimesA beautiful and tragic book . Danticat startles and enraptures readers once again with The Farming of Bones, a novel so mature in its exposition, so captivating in its spirit that it perpetually astonishes the reader in every remarkable chapter.-The Orlando SentinelDanticat . infuses the dreamlike prose of her earlier works with a politicized resonance in her second novel. . An eyeopening and delicately written testimonial to the nameless and faceless who died in a historically overlooked conflict.-The Wall Street JournalBecause the larger themes of trauma and collective memory are in the hands of a gifted fiction writer, the novel cannot be summarized by casual reference to genocidal fact. Indeed, some of the most interesting writers today-Toni Morrison in Paradise, Caryl Phillips in Cambridge-are blending history and fiction, imparting information, in the manner of nineteenth century novelists, without seeming to. A beautifully conceived work, with monumental themes.-The NationSteely, nuanced . its a testament to Danticats skill that Amabelles musical, sorrowing voice never falters.-The New YorkerA surprisingly subtle and wise book.-Chicago TribuneAn admirable, even brilliant, work by an author of tremendous talent . a story that will haunt both the mind and the soul.-The Denver PostExquisite . Passionate and heartrending, Bones lingers in the consciousness like an unforgettable nightmare.-Entertainment WeeklyAn erotic, devastating tale . Danticat . lets us feel the pain and hope of Amabelles journey, using language thats poetic and understated all at once.-MadamoiselleA beautiful book. Danticats writing is superb, drifting easily from the visionary and ecstatic to the bare and simple notice of things as they are.-The Sunday OregonianStunning both as revelation of a forgotten atrocity and as demonstration of narrative craft.-The Cleveland Plain-DealerDanticat gives us fully realized characters who endure their lives with dignity, a sensuously atmospheric setting and a perfectly paced narrative written in prose that is lushly poetic and erotic, specifically detailed . and starkly realistic. While this novel is deeply sad, it is infused with Danticats fierce need to bear witness.-Publishers Weekly, Starred ReviewProduct DescriptionIt is 1937 and Amabelle Dsir, a young Haitian woman living in the Dominican Republic, has built herself a life as the servant and companion of the wife of a wealthy colonel. She and Sebastien, a cane worker, are deeply in love and plan to marry. But Amabelle's world collapses when a wave of genocidal violence, driven by Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo, leads to the slaughter of Haitian workers. Amabelle and Sebastien are separated, and she desperately flees the tide of violence for a Haiti she barely remembers.Already acknowledged as a classic, this harrowing story of love and survival-from one of the most important voices of her gen. Seller Inventory # DADAX1616953497
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