Dominican Republic
Entry updated 3 April 2015. Tagged: International.
Among the Hispanic islands of the Caribbean basin, the Dominican Republic is perhaps the country that shows the smallest amount of sf production. Although Josefina de la Cruz's (? - ) Una casa en el espacio ["A House in Space"] (1986) could be considered the first sf work from the island, this cannot be accepted without controversy owing to its generic ambivalence, Equipoisal between sf (perhaps), Fantasy and religious discourse. Its originality is, in any case, based on its focus on the religious akashic records. However, Unión: la reunificatión de la Tierra ["Union: Earth's Reunification"] (2007), by Yerry Batista (?1971- ), is a futuristic social sf novel that calls for the unity of humanity if we want to save Earth from ourselves. Batista has also published the short story "El Código Naranja" ["The Orange Code"] (2008) in the Cuban E-Zine Qubit.
Apart from Batista's novel, there are few other authors who write sf, and still fewer who have been published. One of those authors is Mario Dávalos (1978- ), who appeared in the Casa de las Américas collection Qubit. Antología de la nueva ciencia ficción latinoamericana ["Qubit. Anthology of the New Latin American Science Fiction"] (anth 2011) edited by Raúl Aguiar, with the short story "Glooning" ["Glooning"]. However, most Dominican authors write "cuentos breves" ["very short stories"] (see Flash Fiction), a subgenre that has become quite popular in Latin America and Spain in recent years, and that has been promoted by the proliferation of E-Zines. The Spanish-based SF Magazine Revista Digital miNatura ["Digital Journal miNatura"] (miNatura) is perhaps the most important promoter of sf cuentos breves, and it has a considerable participation from Dominican writers.
Moisés Santana Castro (1984- ) has been, perhaps, the most successful of these authors. He was a finalist of the I Concurso de Cuento Breve "Voz Hispana" (Mexico, 2010) with "Caballo de Troya" ["Trojan Horse"], and also a finalist in the Concurso Literario Club de Abuelos (Buenos Aires, 2012) with "Cuando el cohete estalló" ["When the Rocket Exploded"]. However, his only publication to date is "El gran incendio" ["The Big Burn"] (2012 miNatura #119). The publisher Editorial El Barco Ebrio has also accepted for publication his collection of short stories and essays The human show y otros bestiarios ["The Human Show and other Bestiaries"] (coll forthcoming).
Here follows a list of authors who have published cuentos breves in miNatura (which accepts only stories of fewer than twenty-six lines) during the 2010s: Mary Cruz Paniagua Suero (1988- ), "Mefistófeles" ["Mephistopheles"] (2012 miNatura #121), and ¡¡!Boom! ["Boom!"] (2012 miNatura #120); Lauristelys Peña Solano (? - ), "Pandora" ["Pandora"] (2012 miNatura #119); Deisey Toussaint (1987- ) "El misterio de la carretera" ["The Mystery of the Road"] (2012 miNatura #121), and "La Rebelión de la Tierra" ["Earth Rebellion"] (2012 miNatura #119); Vicente Arturo Pichardo (1981- ), "Orden indirecta" ["Indirect Order"] (2012 miNatura #121), "El rastro del crimen" ["The Trail of the Crime"] (2012 miNatura #121), "Los gritos se apagan ... se apagan" ["The Screams Fade Away ... Fade Away"] (2012 miNatura #123); Rodolfo Baéz (1983- ), "La primera memoria" ["First Memory"] (2012 miNatura #119), "Asesinos naturales" ["Natural Assassins"] (2012 miNatura #120), "El parto" ["The Birth"] (2012 miNatura #123); and Odilius Vlak (? - ), "El asesino orgánico" ["The Organic Assassin"] (2012 miNatura #119), "La despedida de la fuerza de gravedad" ["The Push of Gravity"] (2012 miNatura #119), and "Las bajas reales de una guerra virtual" ["The Real Losers of the Virtual War"] (2012 miNatura #120). [JCTR]
see also: Junot Díaz; Latin America.
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