Description
Book SynopsisThis interdisciplinary collection considers how Dominican-American writer Junot Díaz's aesthetic and activist practice reflect an unprecedented maturation of a shift in American letters toward a hemispheric and planetary culture. Career spanning, the essays examine the intersections of race, Afro-Latinidad, gender, sexuality, disability, poverty, and power in Díaz's work.
Trade Review"Essential reading for casual readers as well as students and scholars of Junot Díaz's literary production." -- Marisel Moreno * Modern Fiction Studies *
"A groundbreaking publication which unpacks the levels of complexity of Díaz’s writing and paves the way for future lines of inquiry into his work." -- Laura Gallon * Textual Practice *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments vii
Editors' Introduction. Junot Díaz and the Decolonial Imagination: From Island to Empire / Monica Hanna, Jennifer Harford Vargas, and José David Saldívar 1
Part I. Activist Aesthetics
1. Against the "Discursive Latino": On the Politics and Praxis of Junot Díaz's Latinidad / Arlene Dávila 33
2. The Decolonizer's Guide to Disability / Julie Avril Minich 49
3. Laughing through a Broken Mouth in
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao / Lyn Di Iorio 69
4. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Cannibalist: Reading Yunior (Writing) in
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao / Monica Hanna 89
Part II. Mapping Literary Geographies
5. Artistry, Ancestry, and Americanness in the Works of Junot Díaz / Silvio Torres-Saillant 115
6. This Is How You Lose it: Navigating Dominicanidad in Junot Díaz's
Drown / Ylce Irizarry 147
7. Latino/a Deracination and the New Latin American Novel / Claudia Milian 173
8. Dictating a Zafa: The Power of Narrative Form as Ruin-Reading / Jennifer Harford Vargas 201
Part III. Doing Race in Spanglish
9. Dismantling the Master's House: The Decolonial Literary Imaginations of Audre Lorde and Junot Díaz / Paula M. L. Moya 231
10. Now Check It: Junot Díaz's Wondrous Spanglish / Glenda R. Carpio 257
11. A Planetary Warning?: The Multilayered Caribbean Zombie in "Monstro" / Sarah Quesada 291
Part IV. Desiring Decolonization
12. Junot Díaz's Search for Decolonial Aesthetics and Love / José David Saldívar 321
13. Sucia Love: Losing, Lying, and Leaving in Junot Díaz's
This Is How You Lose Her / Deborah R. Vargas 351
14. "Christe Apocalyptus": Prospero in the Caribbean and the Art of Power / Ramón Saldívar 377
15. The Search for Decolonial Love: A Conversation between Junot Díaz and Paula M. L. Moya 391
Bibliography 403
Contributors 425
Index 431
