Summary Of The Brief And Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao

Life in the Dominican during the dictatorship of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina was as bad as one can expect a dictatorial reign to be, it sucked major ass. Junot Díaz, in his book The Brief and Wondrous life of Oscar Wao, he describes this type of life in the Dominican from the perspective of a boy named Oscar and his upbringing in the Dominican. Diaz also shares different perspectives and upbringings from Oscars family members like his sister, mother, and grandfather during Trujillo’s rule. Instead of presenting a length description of the Trujillo’s dictatorship and the events that transpired during his rule, Díaz tells a story of a family and their experiences in the Dominican to give a sense of how his rule effected people’s daily lives

At the very beginning of the book he uses the folklore of fukù. He debates it origins, what it means, and uses it frequently through the book to describe unfortunate events. Kind of like karma, but taken more as a curse. As another example, in his chapter on the perspective of Oscar’s grandfather, Diaz mentions that Trujillo “dominated Santo Domingo like it was his very own private Mordor; not only did he lock the country away from the rest of the world… he acted like it was his very own plantation, acted like he owned everything and everyone, killed whomever he wanted to kill, sons, brothers, fathers, mothers, took women away from their

These are two places where the story of Oscar takes place, and as such, makes Diaz more than qualified to tell this story of the Dominican and its impact on those that live there. In addition to his extensive knowledge about the Dominican, that is clearly seen through the book, Diaz also provides further background and history in rather lengthy footnotes he includes throughout the book. This allows him to clarify things such as events, places, people, and lingo that he uses without clouding the story of Oscar with lots of background and context. This helps the reader to understand what is going on without distracting them from the story of Oscar and his