Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Danticat, Edwidge (Vol. 136) - Publishers Weekly (review date 8 June 1998)

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Publishers Weekly (review date 8 June 1998)

SOURCE: A review of The Farming of Bones, in Publishers Weekly, Vol. 245, No. 23, June 8, 1998.

[The following review offers a positive assessment of The Farming of Bones.]

The almost dreamlike pace of Danticat's second novel (Breath, Eyes, Memory, 1994) and the measured narration by the protagonist, Amabelle Desir, at first give no indication that this [novel, The Farming of Bones,] will be a story of furious violence and nearly unbearable loss. The setting, the Dominican Republic in 1937, when dictator Trujillo was beginning his policy of genocide, is a clue, however, to the events that Amabelle relates. She and her lover, Sebastien Onius, are Haitians who have crossed the border. Amabelle is a servant to a patrician family, while Sebastien endures the brutal conditions of work in the cane fields. The lovers each have poignant memories of parental deaths, and other...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Edwidge Danticat with Margaria Fichtner (interview date 1 May 1995)
   2. Edwidge Danticat with Renee H. Shea (interview date 17 January 1996)
   3. Myriam J. A. Chancy (essay date 1997)
   4. Publishers Weekly (review date 8 June 1998)
   5. Michael Upchurch (review date 27 September 1998)
   6. Zia Jaffrey (review date 16 November 1998)
   7. Matthew Rothschild (review date December 1998)
   8. Jacqueline Brice-Finch (review date Spring 1999)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright

1. Edwidge Danticat