Books by country North America
Five books by writers from the Dominican Republic, set there, that give a real sense of the place, starting with In the Time of the Butterflies and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.
Dominican writers have returned again and again to the Trujillo dictatorship of 1930 to 1961. Manuel de Jesús Galván's nineteenth-century novel Enriquillo, translated by Robert Graves as The Cross and the Sword, goes further back, telling of Taíno resistance to Spanish rule in early sixteenth-century Hispaniola. Most Dominican writing is in Spanish, though Julia Alvarez and Junot Díaz, who both grew up partly in the United States, write in English.
Alvarez's In the Time of the Butterflies fictionalises the story of the Mirabal sisters, who opposed Trujillo. Díaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao moves between New Jersey and the island, mixing family curses with Dominican slang. Rita Indiana's Tentacle imagines a near-future Santo Domingo where the religion Santería, queerness and class tension meet.
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A fictionalised story of the Mirabal sisters, who opposed Trujillo's dictatorship in the 1940s–60s, showing fear and resistance in everyday Dominican life.
Moves between New Jersey and the island, using Trujillo-era terror, family curses and Dominican slang to show how history lingers.
A young-adult novel of a girl in 1960 Santo Domingo whose family is caught up in the plot against Trujillo's regime.
A near-future Santo Domingo novel, translated from Spanish, that mixes Caribbean ecology, race, queerness, Santería and Dominican class tensions.
A classic historical novel (Enriquillo), translated by Robert Graves, about Taíno resistance to Spanish colonial rule in early sixteenth-century Hispaniola.
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