In the following review of Danticat's The Farming of Bones, Dean Peerman characterizes the author's work as a distinctive and poetic blend of fully realized characters, seamlessly interweaving history, politics, and fiction in a compelling manner.

"El Corte," the cutting, it was called—a euphemism akin to "ethnic cleansing." It was one of the worst massacres of modern times, though much of the world seems to have forgotten about it. It took place in the Dominican Republic in 1937. Raphael Trujillo, a military leader and former sugar plantation guard (and former hoodlum) who had been trained by U.S. Marines during the 1916-1924 U.S. occupation of his country, managed to get himself elected president in 1930 (there were more votes than eligible voters). Seven years into his rule, Trujillo secretly ordered the killing of thousands of immigrants—most of them sugarcane cutters—from Haiti, the country with which...