Any Dominican Republic novel recommendations?

I find reading a novel set in a country I’m about to enter for the first time really enhances the trip. In the past I’ve read stuff like The Quiet American for Vietnam, Burmese Days for Myanmar and *Kim *for India and they’ve brought out cultural nuances I would never have known about. I prefer stuff set back in some semi distant historical time period but it doesn’t have to be a classic.

In a month I’m heading to the Dominican Republic and would like to read something before I go, what should I read?

In the Time of the Butterflies, a fictionalized account of the Mirabal sisters and their revolution against Trujillo, and an excellent, excellent book by Julia Alvarez.

The Feast of the Goat - Mario Vargas Llosa - Very readable fictionalised account of the assassination of dictator Trujillo in 1961.

Dead Man in Paradise - JB MacKinnon - part travelogue, part murder mystery, part investigative journalism - an excellent book about the author’s exploration of the circumstances in which his uncle, a Canadian priest, was murdered amidst the political violence and repression during the mid 1960s.

Song of the Water Saints - Nelly Rosario - well-written DR family saga, some magic realism elements.

The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Diaz - epic Dominican novel which should appeal to Dopers on so many levels :wink: winner of Pulitzer Prize for fiction, 2007

Drown - Junot Diaz - stunning collection of interconnected short stories

Much of Julia Alvarez’s fiction deals with the Dominican émigré experience in the US, but some parts of her books like How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accents and Yo are set in the DR. In the Name of Salome and Saving the World are mostly set in the DR, as well as In the Time of the Butterflies which has already been mentioned. The same goes for the two Junot Díaz titles - they span both the Dominican and the émigré experience.

check out www.dominicanbookshop.com

Cat Chaser by Elmore Leonard was pretty good.

I second The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. It’s a great book about a Dominican nerd whose family was cursed (that’s an oversimplification, but it’ll do as a basic description). The writing is vibrant and it goes into some historical aspects of the Dominican Republic.

Yet another vote for The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Fabulous read.

Thanks for the tips, I’ll look in to them directly.

I just finished it. I really liked it and his nerd references hit home (ahhhh the nostalgia of my d&d days), but the end I didn´t get.

The books major theme was how Fuku cursed the de Leon family and Oscar´s suffering was a personal example of that. Zafa was the only way to counteract the curse and at 24 Oscar seemed convinced his suffering was necessary and his end inevitable. In the end he uncaracteristically circles that passage in the comic book about ´things never ending´ but I get the feeling we were supposed to see Oscar finally getting laid as a triumph. I kept waiting for a ´Se7en´type plot twist that showed Oscar winning but I never really saw it. I found the whole thing depressing.

What did you guys read into it?