| ||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Orphaned narrator Amabelle Désir works as a housemaid for a powerful military man who becomes her enemy, and her best and only childhood friend Valencia--his wife. Amabelle is Haitian, working by force of necessity in the Dominican Republic, and in love with Sebastian Onius, a migrant Haitain "farmer of bones" (cane-cutter) and vanquisher of the nightmares that drag her into the land of the dead.
Cut off from her family and homeland by the river that forms the riven border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic ("Heaven--my heaven--is the veil of water that stands between my parents and me. To step across it and then come out is what makes me alive."), Amabelle's life condenses a metaphor for the incipient civil war between "two different peoples trying to share one tiny piece of land." Like all civil wars, this one begins in the family. Caught up in the bloody events of the Haitain Massacre of 1937, Amabelle is faced with the dilemma of choosing between a beloved friend whose people become her persecutors and a lover of her own nation who seeks to open her eyes to stark political realities. Language, Amabelle learns, is the key to these realities in a land where pronunciation of the name of a common herb marks a person out for murder, encapsulated by the story of the Dominican Generalissimo chasing a Haitian worker in the cane fields:
"The Generalissimo had him in plain sight and could have shot him in the parsley, but he did not because ... he had a realisation. Your people did not trill their r the way we do, or pronounce the jota. 'You can never hide as long as there is parsley nearby,' the Generalissimo is believed to have said. 'On this island, you walk too far and people speak a different language. Their own words reveal who belongs on what side.' "Making a friend of language, Edwidge Danticat places herself on the side of the power of remembrance, at whose service she places her uncommon gift of writing poetic prose infused by exact and suspenseful storytelling. In The Farming of Bones Danticat returns to the land of her birth and retraces the lifelines of memory that have been rubbed away by decades of displacement. She reaps a harvest that offers history a fable of survival. --Rachel Holmes --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
Extraordinary (TIME OUT )
Danticat delicately tiptoes through bougainvillaea and butterflies into minefields of rape, mayhem, insanity, suicide, terror. (Fay Weldon, MAIL ON SUNDAY )
A first novel of precocious maturity (INDEPENDENT )
A writer of great force with still more potential (INDEPENDENT )
Danticat delicately tiptoes through bougainvillaea and butterflies into minefields of rape, mayhem, insanity, suicide, terror. (Fay Weldon, MAIL ON SUNDAY )
A first novel of precocious maturity (INDEPENDENT )
A writer of great force with still more potential (INDEPENDENT )
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Danticat moves beyond the stream of consciousness of "Krick Krack" and takes us on a voyage to the Dominican Republic and opens our hearts to the drama of a terrifyingly real era of hatred personified. Moving away from the quiet life of a plantation type existence.
The novel lands us in a holocaust situation where the host country becomes murderous and ravenous. The exciting adventure builds from a quiet from a pastoral love story into a fight for survival of Annabelle, the main character, who will be caught in your mind for days afterwards. Sebastien and Annabelle make an adoring couple, even though they are so young. Danticat masterfully evokes the atmosphere of hatred and terror of the massacre of Haitians by Dominicans through the eyes of Amabelle, who at the same time have only a few memories of her childhood and is incredibly uncertain future.
I thought this book was an excellent representation of how life was treated back in 1937 in the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Not only was this a pure love story, but it was so factual and real. Danticat does an excellent job with her writing this novel, and deserves an applause. This book was touching and gripping at the same time. As a Haitian American I have always had an interest in understanding the history and problems which exist and have existed in Haiti, but in reading several texts I often find that the language of the genre is often uninteresting. For me Danticat changes that, she takes a historical event in Haitian history and structures it magnificently through the eyes of her young female character. I am glad that there is someone like Ms. Danticat in the literary world to help young Haitians like myself gain a better understanding of Haiti and its culture.
The novel lands us in a holocaust situation where the host country becomes murderous and ravenous. The exciting adventure builds from a quiet from a pastoral love story into a fight for survival of Annabelle, the main character, who will be caught in your mind for days afterwards. Sebastien and Annabelle make an adoring couple, even though they are so young. Danticat masterfully evokes the atmosphere of hatred and terror of the massacre of Haitians by Dominicans through the eyes of Amabelle, who at the same time have only a few memories of her childhood and is incredibly uncertain future.
I thought this book was an excellent representation of how life was treated back in 1937 in the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Not only was this a pure love story, but it was so factual and real. Danticat does an excellent job with her writing this novel, and deserves an applause. This book was touching and gripping at the same time. As a Haitian American I have always had an interest in understanding the history and problems which exist and have existed in Haiti, but in reading several texts I often find that the language of the genre is often uninteresting. For me Danticat changes that, she takes a historical event in Haitian history and structures it magnificently through the eyes of her young female character. I am glad that there is someone like Ms. Danticat in the literary world to help young Haitians like myself gain a better understanding of Haiti and its culture.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I think Danticat is a gifted writer. This novel is a touching story of 1930s Haiti, where intrigues , passions, schisms and hardships fuelled instability which amongst other things also resulted to the massacre of Haitians by Dominicans under the Trujillo regime . Brilliantly told by Danticat , this sad epoch of Haitian history ends up making a captivating read.
Recommended along with Disciples of Fortune, Breath Eyes Memory, The usurper and Other Stories, Triple Agent Double Cross
Format:Paperback
This book was a book that I had to read at one sitting. I did not sleep, ate and took a bath with it... Well written and a interesting story. Well worth the money!
The Farming of Bones
The Farming of Bones
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Silent strength
Edwidge Danticat is a gift writer. She has this amazing ability to evoke this clarity without being brash or animated. Her silent assurance is her strength. Read more
Published on 10 Feb 2001
Farming the Gift
My first introduction to Edwidge Danticat came in the form of a casual glance at her first novel, Breath, Eyes, Memory, which had been featured as an Oprah Book Selection sometime... Read more
Published on 4 Feb 1999
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
