The Farming of Bones
Edwidge DanticatFarming of Bones is a work of historical fiction by Edwidge Danticat, published in 1998. It tells the story of an orphaned young Haitian woman living in the Dominican Republic who gets caught up in the carnage of the Parsley massacre during the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo.
Background:
Born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Edwidge Danticat visited the Dajabón River, across the Haitian border in the Dominican Republic, in 1995 and was surprised to find the people there seemingly unaware of the brutal killings that had taken place there during the Parsley massacre (1937), when tens of thousands of Haitian workers were murdered. Danticat set out to memorialize the victims and their suffering, by telling their stories and spreading knowledge.
Importance of remembering the past, one of Danticat's major themes, is the purpose of the book itself which is to emphasize the importance of remembering the past. Throughout the book, the Haitian workers make a point of retelling and remembering all that happened to them.