"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." (From The Farming of Bones)

A couple of months ago, I read the book The Farming of Bones, by Edwidge Danticat. The Farming of Bones takes place on the island of Hispaniola in the 1930s. It begins in a fictional village in the Dominican Republic; at the same time Dictator Rafael Trujillo began his policy on Haitian genocide. We follow Amabelle Desir on her journey from being the servant in a Dominican household to her passage back to her native Haiti.

From Publishers Weekly:

The almost dreamlike pace of Danticat's second novel (Breath, Eyes, Memory, 1994) and the measured narration by the protagonist, Amabelle Desir, at first give no indication that this will be a story of furious violence and nearly unbearable loss. The setting, the Dominican Republic in 1937, when dictator Trujillo was beginning his policy of genocide, is a clue, however, to the events that Amabelle relates. She and her lover, Sebastien Onius, are Haitians who have crossed the border. Amabelle is a servant to a patrician family, while Sebastien endures the brutal conditions of work in the cane fields. The lovers each have poignant memories of parental deaths, and other deaths enter the narrative early, subtly presaging the slaughter that is to come. Haitians in the DR, always regarded as foreigners, are "an orphaned people, a group of vwayaje, wayfarers." When a military-led assault against them does erupt, it is a surprise, however, and as Amabelle barely survives a massacre by soldiers and an equally bloodthirsty civilian population, the narrative acquires the unflinching clarity of a documentary. In addition to illuminating a shameful, little known chapter of history, Danticat 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 (the Haitians were betrayed by their inability to pronounce "parsley") and starkly realistic. While this novel is deeply sad, it is infused with Danticat's fierce need to bear witness, coupled with a knowledge that "life can be a strange gift" even when memory makes endurance a difficult task.

I found, The Farming of Bones, to be an incredibly moving story. Ms. Danticat, a Haitian-American is an amazing story-teller. She writes in a poetic way. She will capture your attention straight off and change your life through her stories. The Farming of Bones is a heart-wrenching novel based on a tragic part of Haitian history. Despite its sadness, The Farming of Bones is an excellent way to learn about and understand this time in Haitian history.