Diagnoses of Dominican Dysfunction: Narrative Emplotments of the Trujillato

This article analyzes, in various texts, the particular aspects of the
dictatorship under Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina in the Dominican
Republic. It also identifies the social antagonisms and contradictions
and establishes what narrative strategies are used to convey particular
readings (and renderings) of the dictatorship in the novels of Manuel
Vázquez Montalbán (Galíndez, 2002), Mario Vargas Llosa (La
fiesta del chivo, 2000), Julia Álvarez (In the Time of the Butterflies,
1994), Angie Cruz (Let It Rain Coffee, 2005), and the more recent one
by Junot Díaz (The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, 2007). The
study concludes that the Trujillato and its repercussions continue to
be taken up in the fiction of Dominicans and Dominican-Americans
alike and discusses the importance and impact this national trauma
has had on the nation.