El fin de semana leí la novela del ganador del Pulitzer 2008. Junot Díaz, que intentó por mucho tiempo escribir una novela de ciencia ficción titulada Akira finalmente publicó luego de varios años esta fantástica novela titulada “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao“.

El relato lleva al lector a lo largo de un viaje generacional de una familia dominicana. Esta familia es seguida por una nefasta y obscura maldición llamada en el localismo dominicano “fukú”. Oscar, un gordo intelectual, obstinado y enamorado de cuanta chica encuentra es el último hombre de esa generación. Vive en Nueva Jersey y sobrevive en un mundo en el que los gordos no son aceptados, los sci-fi geeks no son entendidos, los pobres no son bienvenidos, y los enamorados son masacrados.

Sin duda, esta novela debe ser leída en inglés. Una de las características más interesantes del flujo de la lectura es la presencia del Spanglish en la obra. Leerla en cualquier otro idioma sería imposible y a la vez limitaría la capacidad del lector para entender a la sociedad inmigrante en los Estados Unidos de América.

Ah, pero esto no es todo. Hay un fantasma que junto al fukú acompañará al lector conforme pasen las páginas de esta novela. La sombra del dictador Trujillo será capaz de violar la dignidad de las familias más respetables y educadas de la RD.

Espero que disfruten esta fantástica obra.

Otros links:

“Una historia de once años” por Junot Diaz
Vida y obra de Junot Díaz
Página oficial de Junot Díaz

El cantante norteamericano Bob Dylan recibió ayer una mención especial, en la entrega de los premios Pulitzer, por su “profundo impacto en la música popular y en la cultura norteamericana, gracias a composiciones líricas de un extraordinario poder poético“. No fue la única mención a Dylan. Junot Diaz, ganador en el rubro ficción por su novela The Brief Wondrous Life os Oscar Wao , dijo que no sólo era un fan de Dylan sino que un capítulo giraba alrededor de sus letras.

Por otro lado, el diario The Washington Post se alzó con seis Pulitzer, incluido el de Servicio Público, por revelar el maltrato a veteranos heridos en un hospital, marcando así casi un récord en las entregas de estos premios al periodismo.

Además, Walt Bogdanovich y Jake Hooker, de The New York Times, ganaron el premio correspondiente a notas de investigación por su trabajo sobre los ingredientes tóxicos en productos medicinales importados de China.

On his winning Pulitzer, Meghan O’Rourke interviews Diaz for Slate, where, among other things he also says:

Slate: As I mentioned above, much of Oscar Wao isn’t only about its protagonist, a nerdy kid from New Jersey, but about the dictatorship of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo in the Dominican Republic from 1930 to 1961. Can you tell us what drew you to Trujillo?

Díaz: Trujillo was one of the U.S.’s favorite sons, one of its children. He was created and sustained by the U.S.’s political-military machine. I wanted to write about the demon child of the U.S., the one who was inflicted upon the Dominican Republic. It didn’t hurt that as a person Trujillo was so odd and terrifying, unlike anybody I’d ever read or heard about. He was so fundamentally Dominican, and for a Dominican writer writing about masculinity, about dictatorship, power, he’s indispensable.

I’ve always been drawn to dictators. My father was a Little League dictator. That really affected me, his control-freakery, his impunity, his arbitrary unreasonable power. So there was that. Also, my book required a Dark Lord, and what better dark lord than a real life dictator? Trujillo exemplifies the negative forces that have for so long beleaguered the peoples of the New World. Seemed the perfect foil for Oscar. This novel (I cannot say it enough) is all about the dangers of dictatorship—Trujillo is just the face I use to push these issues—but the real dictatorship is in the book itself, in its telling; and that’s what I think is most disturbing: how deeply attached we all are to the institution of dictatorship.

Slate: What do you mean when you say the “real dictatorship is in the book itself”?

Díaz: We all dream dreams of unity, of purity; we all dream that there’s an authoritative voice out there that will explain things, including ourselves. If it wasn’t for our longing for these things, I doubt the novel or the short story would exist in its current form. I’m not going to say much more on the topic. Just remember: In dictatorships, only one person is really allowed to speak. And when I write a book or a story, I too am the only one speaking, no matter how I hide behind my characters.

Slate: One could, of course, have written a more straightforward “political” novel about the depredations of Trujillo’s dictatorship. How—or why—in your mind do the stories of Trujillo and Oscar fit together?

Díaz: I guess the question for me is, how are they not related? It’s like the history of the Dominican Republic. You can’t tell the history of the U.S. without the history of the Dominican Republic, and yet people do so all the time. Oscar, like Lola, like Yunior, is one of Trujillo’s children. His shadow, his legacy, is upon them all in ways that none of them understand. Trujillo is a local version of the legacy of the New World, which all of us who live in this hemisphere carry upon our heads. The novel’s question is: How do you deal with this legacy? Do you run from it? Do you ignore it, deploy existential denial? These are strategies that add to the legacy’s power, that guarantee its perpetuation. Or do you look into the silence and actually say the words that you have to say?

Take a look!