The farming of the bones

Towards the end of Edwidge Danticat's new novel The Farming of Bones, a man says "Famous men never truly die... It is only those nameless and faceless who vanish like smoke in the early morning air." The time is 1937, the place the island which Haiti and The Dominican Republic share. Through the eyes of the narrator, a Haitian woman named Amabelle working as a domestic servant in the Dominican Republic, we have just seen scores …

…face of brutality and horror, adds to the story's effectiveness. Her Amabelle is a flesh and blood woman, no mouthpiece for any kind of cant. We share in her joys and sorrows, her dreams, memories, and day to day struggles. Edwidge Danticat has chosen to write about a real event, the Haitian massacre of 1937, from the point of view of one "small" person and from this has etched an indelible work of art. Highly recommended.