""The ruin of the poor is their poverty," Tibon went on. "The poor man, no matter who he is, is always despised by his neighbors. When you stay too long at a neighbor's house, it's only natural that he become weary of you and hate you.""
One island, two countries: the French-Creole speaking Haiti and the Spanish speaking Dominican Republic. Divided by the Rio Artibonito, one is poor, the other is rich. The Haitians leave their country to find work in the Dominican, mostly in the cane-rich fields near the border between the two countries. In 1937, the President of the Dominican Republic ordered the massacre of the Haitian labourers after receiving reports that the labourers had been stealing cattle and crops from the Dominicans. To determine whether one was Haitian or Dominican, the soldiers would dangle a sprig of parsley before the victim and would ask "What is this?" [In Haitian Creole, parsley is pèsi and persil in French, and the Haitians could not pronounce the Spanish word 'perejil' - the r is trilled and the j has the sound of h - some of you might not know, but in the French language there is no 'h' sound.] The soldiers then assumed that anyone who couldn't pronounce 'perejil' is Haitian. Thousands of Haitian civilians were murdered in a span of five days. The massacre became known in history as The Parsley Massacre.
This was the backdrop of the story of Amabelle, a Haitian help in a Dominican household, as she tried to flee from the murderous soldiers, along with her beloved Sebastien and their friends who worked the cane fields. Sebastien got lost and while Amabelle and her friend Yves made it back to Haiti, she had wanted to know what had been Sebastien's fate. The novel is rich in character development and symbolism and the pace is neither slow nor fast, so that the flow of the story is so fluid you will never lose your place in the story, whether the character is dreaming or reminiscing or is in the present; it is so well written you cannot help but sympathize with each character no matter which side he/she is from.
-o0o-
this book made me cry and is one of my most favourite novels. i have read all the books that Edwidge Danticat has written and i enjoyed reading and re-reading them. she is one of the best writers of this generation. and i am so jealous of her writing talent. i have read this novel three times and i probably would read it again.
i was going to buy some parsley to photograph for this post, but they're not very pretty. however, i have photos of lavender, which is also an herb (or a herb, if you will) so lavender is proxying for parsley. goodnight, folks.
see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsley_Massacre
@bkbinthecity - thank you.
@nectarfizz - bekki, thank you.
@steeler - as always, very kind words from you. thank you, howard.
@ilseal - why, thank you, ms. ilse. i'm so glad.
@catsmeowb - thanks much for your support, camille. i promise you will enjoy this book.
@roth - i do agree that purple fits everything! thank you, sue.
this book sounds good, on the list it goes...
you're right about parsley, it's not that pretty, but I'm sure with your skills you coulda made it good!