Writing Haiti Global: Food and Fascism in Edwidge Danticat's The Farming of Bones

Abstract

Edwidge Danticat's 1998 work of historical fiction, The Farming of Bones (New York: Penguin Books, 1998), critiques the dysfunctional “family” of social classes and ethnic groups who live together in the Dominican Republic just across the river from Haiti during the 1930s. The novel’s climax is the so-called “Parsley Massacre” of 1937, during which fascist dictator General Trujillo’s army murdered 12,000 Haitians living on Dominican soil. To a large extent, the author paints her complex portrait of the many social players in this series of baffling and tragic occurrences and of the relationships between those players by writing about food. This article’s examination of The Farming of Bones through the lens of food yields a richer, more nuanced reading of the work’s commentary on the place of agricultural workers in a merciless global food production context.