The Farming of Bones by Edwidge Danticat

Danticat is one of my favorite authors. I don't know why I'm drawn to her stories - they're always sad, fictionalized accounts of all the horrible things that happen in Haiti, especially between the Haitians and the Dominicans. She's a beautiful writer - I guess that's why I like her, despite the tone of despair that permeates her writing. The Greeks wrote tragedies because they believed that catharsis was good for the soul, and that's what Danticat's books offer - the experience of pain without actually having to go through it. And even though they are sad, they aren't without hope. The terrors of the past and present might be senseless, but there's always the feeling that if the future holds nothing better, we can at least hope to keep enduring.

"The Farming of Bones" is the story of Amabelle, an orphaned Haitian servant living in the Dominican Republic. Although her past has already been scarred by the Dominican hatred for Haitians, she is happy in her friendship with her mistress and her love for Sebastien, a handsome sugarcane cutter who promises to make her his wife and bring her back to Haiti where a better life awaits them both. But instead the nation erupts in violence against the Haitians, and Amabelle is left alone to bear the memories of all those she loses.