Escape from Caribbean Mordor: Exile and the Dominican Diaspora in Junot Diaz’s "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao"

Abstract

Since the beginning of their history as British colonies, the United States have taken in a large number of exiles, who have often used fiction to recount their diasporic experience and the subsequent search for roots by the descendants of those who migrated. We will analyze The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007), by Dominican-American writer Junot Díaz, as a locus of tension between the country that forces into exile (the Dominican Republic) and the country who takes in (the United States), also reflected in the complex identity of the protagonists, split between two cultures. We will examine, as well, the connection between the main text and the abundant and long footnotes –something quite unusual in the novel as a genre–, and expound how this reflects the tension between the authorial voice and other voices which are banished into the margins, mirroring the tension between the dictator and exiled or disappeared dissidents in the Dominican Republic during the Trujillato.