The Farming of Bones by Edwidge Danticat

Thursday, June 4, 2020--San Antonio

The Farming of Bones by Edwidge Danticat is historical fiction set along the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic.  It follows the story of a Haitian woman who was taken into the home of an upper class Dominican family when she was found at the riverside immediately after her parents had drowned.  The story is based on an actual event that took place when the Dominican dictator decided that his country was being overrun by illegal Haitian immigrants who had crossed the river to mainly do manual labor related to the raising of sugar cane.  There was a massacre in which many Haitians died and most others barely made it back across the river to Haiti.  Families were divided, what happened to friends and relatives was unknown, etc.  The reader will not be able to read it at the current without thinking of the right-wing movement in America to seal off the border between the US and Mexico and to send all illegal Mexicans and Central Americans back to their home countries.  The book is well written, but it took me about 50 pages to get really involved in the story.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.