International IMPAC DUBLIN Literary Award

It is 1937, the Dominican side of the Haitian border. Amabelle, orphaned at the age of eight when her parents drowned, is a maid to the young wife of an army colonel. She has grown up in this household, a faithful servant. Sebastien is a field hand, an itinerant sugarcane cutter. They are Haitians, useful to the Dominicans but not really welcome. There are rumours that in other towns Haitians are being persecuted, even killed. But there are always rumours. Amabelle loves Sebastien. He is handsome despite the sugarcane scars on his face, his calloused hands. She longs to become his wife and walk into their future. Instead, terror enfolds them. But the story does not end here: it begins. The Farming of Bones is about love, fragility, barbarity, dignity, remembrance, and the only triumph possible for the persecuted: to endure. Edwidge Danticat was born in 1969 and came to the United States when she was twelve years old. She graduated from Barnard College and received an M.F.A. from Brown University. Her first novel, Breath, Eyes, Memory, was published to acclaim when she was twenty-five. The following year she was nominated for the National Book Award for her story collection Krik? Krak!, which was nominated for the 1997 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Her stories have been widely anthologised. She is the recipient of a Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Foundation grant and was named as one of the 20 "Best Young American Novelists" by Granta in 1996. Edwidge Danticat lives in New York.

The Farming of Bones by
Edwidge Danticat

Nominated by:

The Farming of Bones by Edwidge Danticat

Nominated by:

The Farming of Bones by
Edwidge Danticat