How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez
In the 1960s, political tension forces the García family away from Santo Domingo and towards the Bronx. The sisters all hit their strides in America, adapting and thriving despite cultural differences, language barriers, and prejudice. But Mami and Papi are more traditional, and they have far more difficulty adjusting to their new country.
In the Name of Salome by Julia Alvarez
Inspired by real events, this sweeping novel spans 100 years & the lives of a heroic woman whose poetry inspired one Caribbean revolution, and her daughter whose dedication to teaching strengthened another.
Yo! by Julia Alvarez
The American odyssey of Yo, a Dominican woman writer whose family arrived in the U.S. as refugees from a dictatorship. The novel follows her youth, with its energy and optimism, and the setbacks as she grows older, including two divorces.
Let it Rain Coffee: A Novel by Angie Cruz
Flashing between past and present, this is a sweeping novel about love, loss, family, and the elusive nature of memory and desire, set amid the crosscurrents of the history and culture that shape our past and govern our future.
Drown by Junot Diaz (short stories)
Stories set in the Dominican Republic and in New Jersey. In "Ysrael," a boy is disfigured by a pig, "No Face" is on his trip to America to undergo plastic surgery, and "How to Date" is on the art of dating interracially.
Muddy Cup: A Dominican Family Comes of Age in New America by Barbara Fischkin (nonfiction)
Traces the challenges faced by four generations of a Dominican family after leaving their poverty-stricken country under the dictator, Trujillo, and arriving in Queens, New York.
Geographies of Home by Loida Maritza Perez
A Dominican family with fourteen children tries to succeed in the United States.
Song of the Water Saints by Nelly Rosario
A debut novel chronicling the lives of three generations of remarkable Dominican women ranges from the early 1900s to the present day as it follows Graciela, who flees the strictures of her poverty-stricken rural life; her daughter Mercedes, who builds a new life in New York City; and Leila, a restless young woman coming of age in the high-spirited 1990s.
Other titles that take place during Rafael Trujillo's dictatorship:
In the Time of Butterflies, Before We Were Free by Julia Alvarez
Based on real events, this is the story of the life and death of three revolutionary sisters in the Dominican Republic, told by a surviving fourth. One by one the Mirabal Sisters, as they were known, join the opposition to the Trujillo dictatorship in the 1950s, suffering imprisonment and torture while their men watch powerless.
General Sun, My Brother by Jacques Stephen Alexis
A novel on the exploitation of the poor in the Caribbean. Forced to work as a sugar-cane cutter in the Dominican Republic, a Haitian peasant participates in a strike which ends in a massacre.
The Farming of Bones: A Novel by Edwidge Danticat
In 1937, on the Dominican side of the Haiti border, Amabelle, an orphaned maid to an army colonel's wife, falls in love with Sebastien, an itinerant sugarcane cutter, but their relationship is threatened by the violent persecution of the Haitians.
The Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa
Returning to her native Dominican Republic, forty-nine-year-old Urania Cabral discovers that Rafael Trujillo, the depraved dictator called "the Goat" by the Dominicans, still reigns over his inner circle, which includes Urania's father, with brutality and blackmail, but soon an uprising against him will result in a revolution that will have profound consequences.
Autumn of the Patriarch by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The discovery of a South American dictator's rotting corpse in the deserted tangle of his crumbling palace prompts a search through his past and a colorful chronicle of his progression from popular, beloved, unafraid ruler to isolated, frightened despot.
Massacre River by Rene Philoctete
A tale set against a backdrop of 1937's massacre of thousands of Haitians under the orders of power-mad generalissimo Trujillo finds the loving interracial marriage of Dominican Pedro and Haitian Adčle shattered when a group of soldiers arrive in their Dominican border town intent on murdering Haitian citizens.
They Forged the Signature of God by Viriato Sencion
A chilling picture of internal politics in the Dominican Republic, became that country's best-selling ever work of fiction. Tracing the lives of three seminarians persecuted by Church and state, allegory and gallows humor portray political power gone awry.
And read-alikes from other cultures:
I'll Steal You Away by Niccolo Ammaniti
Growing up in an Italian village, Pietro is ignored by his parents and suffers the torment of bullies, but the arrival of an aging playboy, Graziano Biglia, helps Pietro realize that only by leaving home can he become the man he should be.
The Dew Breaker by Edwidge Danticat
A scarred Brooklyn resident remembers his past life as a Haitian torturer in the 1960s, a period during which he waged personal and political battles before moving to New York, where his past continued to haunt him.
Celestial Harmonies by Peter Esterhazy
The novelist chronicles the history of his own remarkable family, the Esterházys, within the framework of a historical narrative that captures the emotional ties between generations of the aristocratic dynasty and the history of Europe, especially within the context of the twentieth century, as the Esterházys dealt with the Communist takeover of Hungary.
Knots by Nuruddin Farah
Returning to her native home in Somalia after being raised in North America and suffering a failed marriage, self-reliant Cambara struggles to reclaim her family's home from a warlord and finds support from a group of women activists.
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
Complicated family history, experiments with language and means of expression, cultural alienation, storyline moving back and forth in time, racial issues. The more one reads in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, the more various aspects of the novel seem to echo another work. If you have not read Faulkner's novel about the Compson family (could they have been afflicted with a fukú?), now might be a good time to immerse yourself in the richness and complexity of the Mississippi Delta.
Consumption by Kevin Patterson
Spanning countries, generations, and cultures, this is an epic novel of the Arctic, and a penetrating portrait of generational division and cultural dissonance.
A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz
After his father's death, Jasper reflects on Martin Dean, the man who had raised him in intellectual captivity and who had spent his entire life analyzing absolutely everything, and describes his father's failed battle to make a lasting impression on the world.
Related Movies
- My American Girls by Aaron Matthews, aired on PBS POV
In vivid detail, MY AMERICAN GIRLS captures the joys and struggles in a year of the lives of the Ortiz family, first-generation immigrants from the Dominican Republic (DR). Matthews' funny and touching film captures the rewards and costs of pursuing the American dream. From hard-working parents, who imagine retiring to their rural homeland, to their American-born daughters, caught between their parents' values and their own, the film encompasses the contradictions of contemporary immigrant life. A Latino Public Broadcasting (LPB) Co-presentation." http://www.filmakers.com
- Dominican Ball Players, a part of the New Americans Series on PBS. http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/newamericans/newamericans/dominican_intro.html
