Cosecha de huesos es uno de los libros más difíciles de leer que he leído. La voz narrativa es a veces una camara cuya reproducción nos estremece. El lector siente lo contado como flechas cuyo blanco es el corazón. Danticat escribe con una prosa punzante, desnuda, poética a ratos. Usa una adjetivación potente, eficaz, y precisa para realzar la narración. La novela se lee rápido, sin embargo, a la mitad se hace un poco lenta, todo toma vuelo de nuevo a partir del inicio de la matanza.La novela consta de 41 capítulos, la versión de los hechos que leemos es la de Amabelle. Los capítulos se alternan entre lo que ocurre en Alegría -luego en Cap Haitian-, y los pensamientos y sueños de Amabelle. Una vez que ésta y sus compañeros emprenden el viaje de retorno hacia Haití, la narración prescinde de sus reflexiones, y se centra en la matanza y sus consecuencias. Cuando Amabelle se establece en Haití vuelve a contarnos de sus sueños, anhelos y temores.Cosecha de huesos es una obra de ficción, sin duda, pero sólo se la pueda leer en su contexto histórico: la matanza de miles de haitianos ordena por Trujillo en 1937. Danticat crea personajes ficticios que pudieron haber existido. Son totalmente creíbles, salvo algunas pequeñas incoherencias. La novela muestra el sufrimiento de los personajes en un largo contínuum: la explotación en los cañaverales, el horror de la matanza, la lucha por sobrevivir y retornar a Haití, y finalmente, el trauma psicológico de los sobrevivientes.Sin embargo, la novela es, más que nada, la historia de Amabelle Désir, una joven haitiana cuya vida estuvo marcada por el río Masacre. En sus aguas perdió a sus padres a los ocho años, lo cruzó para escapar del corte, y al final de la novela Amabelle intenta encontrar en sus aguas un nuevo amanecer para la larga y oscura noche que ha sido su vida.Amabelle fue encontrada al lado del río Masacre por la familia para la que trabajaría por diecisiete años. Lo que debió haber sido un viaje al mercado, al ahogarse sus padres, se convirtió en una larga estanacia en la República Dominicana, la cual sólo sería interrumpida por la matanza. Los rumores de que ésta se aproximaba la llevaron a decidir marcharse en compañia de su novio, Sebastien, la hermana de éste, y varios otros nacionales haitianos.Escaparían por la noche después de misa, pero los planes se frustraron, pues los soldados llegaron antes de que pudieran intentarlo. Amabelle se salva por no haber llegado aún a la iglesia. Cuando se entera de que Sebastien y su hermana no han escapado, decide ir por ellos. Yves, el mejor amigo de Sebastien se marcha con ella. En el camino encuentran a otros que también intentan escapar de la masacre o buscan a un ser querido.Su destino es Dajabón, unos para ir a la cárcel por los suyos, otros para cruzar el río. En el trayecto se van dando cuenta de lo desesperado de la situación. Vieron villas encendiadas, una familia ahorcada en su propia casa, y al llegar a Dajabón fueron asaltados por una turba, que con perejil en manos, se abanlanzó sobre ellos. Uno de los viajantes es muerto de un machetazo, los demás escapan, algunos mal heridos. Su único objetivo es ahora evitar a los guardias para llegar al río e intentar volver a Haití.Al final sólo sobreviven Amabelle e Yves, aunque ambos están físicamente vivos, nunca se recuperan de haber presenciado tantas muertes y mutilaciones. Amabelle se queda a vivir con Yves y su madre, pero, a pesar de haber vivido Cap Haitian de niña, no encuentra la paz al volver a su pueblo natal. A través de los años, ella mantiene la esperanza de encontrar a Sebastien y a su hermana, pero las evidencias apuntan a que éstos fueron asesinados.La historia que nos relata Amabelle es una verosímil versión, aunque novelada, de lo que pudo haber pasado durante la masacre de Haitianos en la República Dominicana en 1937. Hay a lo largo de la novela un deseo expreso de CONTAR lo vivido durante la tragedia. Edwidge Danticat hace un homenaje a los que perecieron, y sobrevivieron tal horror. Cosecha de huesos es una novela bien lograda, pero más que nada necesaria. Leerla es rescatar a las víctimas de esa otra muerte que es el olvido, y sobre todo una forma de decir, nunca jamás.
t“His name is Sebastien Onius.t“He comes most nights to put an end to my nightmare, the one I have all the time, of my parents drowning.”tThus begins the tale of Amabelle Dessire, a servant of a wealthy Dominican family. Set in 1937, The Dominican Rebublic is growing restless with the increased population of Haitian migrant Cane workers. Amabelle's lover Sebastien, a Cane worker himself, is plagued by the memories of the Hurricane of 1930. Amabelle, too, is plagued by the hurricane which swept away her mother and father when she was young.tJust as Amabelle and Sebastien plan to get married, the Haitian Genocide occurs, splitting their paths and destinies apart.tI was excited to receive this book as a loan from a friend. I first heard about this author from one of my favorite high school teachers, who is actually the brother of the author. I've been itching to read her for a while, so I ate this book up when it reached my hands.tI love the way the author describes events and scenery eloquently. When an author writes, she leaves hints of her identity and background behind, which stood out clearly in this book. Here are some of my favorite lines:t“Your clothes cover more than your skin. . .You become this uniform they make for you. Now you are only you, the flesh.”“In the awakened dark, Sebastien says, if we are not touching, then we must be talking. We mus talk to remind each other that we are not yet in the slumbering dark, which is an endless death, like a darkened cave.”“All the time I had known her, we had always been dangling between being strangers and being friends. Now we were neither strangers nor friends. We were like two people passing each other on the street, exchanging a lengthy, meaningless greeting. And at last I wanted it to end” tOf Haitian descent myself, I was interested in the story of the Haitian Massacre. My parents would mention it in passing, but I had no idea what really happened. After reading this book, I can see where my friends say there's a sense of distrust between Dominicans and Haitians, to say the least.tIn the back of the book, there was a Q&A section, where one of the questions asked was on the reason for making this a work of fiction instead of Nonfiction. She responds by saying that writing in nonfiction made it more visual. I agree with her; this book would not have been as vivid were there not some personal element for the reader to clasp to. Certainly, the tale is horrific enough on its own, but having this fictional character certainly made it all the more emotional.tAll of the characters in this book are well developed and distinct from one another. I love the care taken in adding little behavioral details to the characters. This just makes them that more relatable to the reader. tTherefore, this book is getting 5 stars from me. I will certainly hunt out her other novels to read!
What do You think about The Farming Of Bones (1999)?
I picked this book up because I loved reading one of her previous books, "The Dew Breakers." I loved her style and rythm. It wasn't until I started reading that I realized the book was about the Parsley Rebellion between the people of Haiti and The Dominican Republic. While the book was well written, I wasn't prepared for the brutality and bloodshed between the two countries. We meet Amabelle when she was the handmaid to the wife of a well-to-do Colonel in the Truillo regime and boyfriend to a sugar cane cutter. At the moment life has some promise, Sabiene has vowed this will be his last year in the fields, one can begin to feel the unrest that begins to permeate everything. As the story line moves along, one has to ask...how much oppression and death can one person experience before one breaks. We begin by learning that Amabelle is an orphan having watch her parents drown in an engorged and violent river flood and ends with once again seeing the Mistress of the house she once served and seeing lush and cavenous space behind the waterfalls that was symbolic and promising for the young lovers. A fast moving read but resonates with the ravages of war.
—Mary Raihofer
As much as there's solace to be derived from bestowing much needed attention on non-white-male authored narratives which speak of the ones snubbed callously by literature, on no grounds can poor story-telling be excused. As if page after page of oblique but trite commentary on ethnic conflict, colonialism, slavery and racism lathered on to the bare bones of a plot was not enough, Danticat makes the task of finding redeeming aspects even harder with her stilted, cardboard cutout characters whose continuing plight at the hands of plantation owners, corrupt lawmakers and the military men fails to evoke any empathy. Top it all off with a toneless, drab narrative voice with sporadic stretches of brilliance and what you have is a beautifully-titled novel which never lives up to the promise it shows in the beginning and ends up becoming mere misery porn.
—Samadrita
Sad, but stunningly beautiful, FARMING OF THE BONES is a powerfully written evocative account of the horror of the genocide committed in 1937 against poor Haitian cane workers and others by the Dominican General Rafael Trujillo. Through the voice of a young orphaned Haitian woman, Amabelle Desir, we follow the lives of desperate Haitian exiles working the Dominican cane fields in deplorable conditions with paltry wages and sparse living conditions. Danticat is a master storyteller and her prose lifts and carries, even as the atrocities of what she is telling unfold on the page. She travels a very painful path with humbling grace. She allows the reader to witness grave injustices while keeping them safely wrapped in her beautiful and poignant prose. . Dreaming... remembering...and family are strong elements which serve to enrich the story and draw the reader in as the reality of the despair becomes readily apparent. Trujillo wants to 'whiten' his populace and thus begins the recounting of an unimaginable and shocking ethnic cleansing. Towards the end of the novel, a man says "Famous men never truly die... It is only those nameless and faceless who vanish like smoke in the early morning air." ...on the island which Haiti and The Dominican Republic share. Through the eyes of the narrator, Amabelle working as a maid in the Dominican Republic, we see scores of Haitians cruely massacred. None of those killed is anyone famous, nearly all the slaughtered are poor Haitians working as cheap labor in the neighboring country, but Amabelle's story serves to refute those words spoken about the nameless and faceless of the earth. In this book, they are remembered, and in her story they all have names and faces.
—Savvy
