num_pages: 312
description: The Farming of Bones begins in 1937 in a village on the Dominican side of the river that separates the country from Haiti. Amabelle Desir, Haitian-born and a faithful maidservant to the Dominican family that took her in when she was orphaned, and her lover Sebastien, an itinerant sugarcane cutter, decide they will marry and return to Haiti at the end of the cane season. However, hostilities toward Haitian laborers find a vitriolic spokesman in the ultra-nationalist Generalissimo Trujillo who calls for an ethnic cleansing of his Spanish-speaking country. As rumors of Haitian persecution become fact, as anxiety turns to terror, Amabelle and Sebastien's dreams are leveled to the most basic human desire: to endure. Based on a little-known historical event, this extraordinarily moving novel memorializes the forgotten victims of nationalist madness and the deeply felt passion and grief of its survivors.
language: English
title: The Farming of Bones
titlecomplete: The Farming of Bones
genres: 20th Century, Historical, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Novels, School, Adult Fiction, Literature, Fiction, Contemporary
ratings_count: 9046
awards: awardedAt: 915177600000
name: American Book Award
publisher: Penguin Books