Fiction

Alvarez, Julia. A Cafecito Story. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing Company, 2001. A parable about people participating in sustainability: growing coffee, caring for land, consumerism, and impacting tourism.

Alvarez, Julia. How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents. Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books, 1994. Alvarez paints a beautiful and honest portrait of a Dominican family and their struggle and desire to Americanize. The details of Dominican society, the immigrant views, and the first-generation rebellion stories are both subtly written and profoundly present.

Alvarez, Julia. In the Time of the Butterflies. Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books, 1994. The award-winning, historical fiction novel about the Mirabal sisters, who died for the underground movement to overthrow Trujillo.

Bierhorst, John. Latin American Folktales: Stories from Hispanic and Indian Traditions. New York, NY: Pantheon Books, 2003. A wonderful collection of Latin American folktales, including some early colonial tales.

Danticat, Edwidge. The Farming of the Bones. New York: Soho, 1999. Set in the Dominican Republic of 1937, this is a historical fiction tale of the Haitian experience in the Dominican Republic under the brutal tyranny of Trujillo.

Díaz, Junot. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. New York: Riverhead Books, 2007. The celebrated first novel from Díaz, about a geeked-out Dominican-American comic book lover, won the author the Pulitzer Prize. Street lingo meets lyrical prose with a seamless beauty to create a work of art. It’s a spot-on representation of this country’s oral history.

Díaz, Junot. Drown. New York: Penguin Putnam, 2000. A collection of 10 short stories set in the Dominican Republic and in America brimming with sensory accuracy, complex characters, and evocative language.

Vargas Llosa, Mario. The Feast of the Goat. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2001. A historical fiction about the final days and assassination of Trujillo. A Spanish film company made the novel into a film in 2005 with the Spanish name La Fiesta del Chivo, starring Isabella Rossellini.

History

Cambeira, Alan. Quisqueya la Bella: The Dominican Republic in Historical and Cultural Perspective (Perspectives on Latin America and the Caribbean). Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 1996. A look at pre-Columbian Hispaniola, the various peoples and cultures that have occupied the island, and modern-day Dominican Republic.

Chester, Eric Thomas. Rag-Tags, Scum, Riff-Raff, and Commies: The U.S. Intervention in the Dominican Republic, 1965–1966. New York: New York University Press, 2001. A historical look at U.S. and Latin American relations with a focus on the events of the 1965 U.S. invasion of the Dominican Republic using recently declassified intelligence documents.

Diederich, Bernard. Trujillo: The Death of the Dictator. Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener Publishers, 2000. A look at how Trujillo was assassinated and how his politics shaped the country and its people for decades even after his death.

Hall, Michael R. Sugar and Power in the Dominican Republic: Eisenhower, Kennedy, and the Trujillos. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2000. An examination of the sugar industry in the Dominican Republic, the effect it had on U.S.–Dominican relations, and how leaders of both countries manipulated one another through the industry.

Kelsey, Harry. Sir Francis Drake: The Queen’s Pirate. London: Yale University Press, 2000. Brave explorer or ruthless pirate? Depends on who you ask. In Sir Francis Drake’s exploits through the Caribbean, he repeatedly sacked Spanish ships and ports (like Santo Domingo), yet was rewarded by the queen of England and quite admired by his countrymen (but hated by his shipmates). This biography offers the potent opinion that the history books didn’t get it right, suggesting that Drake was a very selfish and often cowardly man.

Lowenthal, Abraham F. The Dominican Intervention. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1972. A good resource for data, politics, origins, and understanding of the American “intervention” in the Dominican Republic using over 100 personal interviews and classified documents.

Matibag, Eugenio. Haitian-Dominican Counterpoint. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. The complicated history of the Haitian–Dominican border and relations. Cultural differences and likenesses are also examined.

Wucker, Michele. Why the Cocks Fight: Dominicans, Haitians, and the Fight for Hispaniola. New York: Hill and Wang, 2000. This book looks at the overexaggerated differences between Haitian and Dominican cultures and tries to examine what is truly at the center of so much tumult.

Culture

Gonzalez, Clara. Aunt Clara’s Dominican Cookbook. New York: Lunch Club Press, 2005. Learn to make a killer sancocho for your next celebration! A must-have cookbook for good, basic Dominican fare.

Klein, Alan. Sugarball: The American Game, the Dominican Dream. London: Yale University Press, 1993. This book outlines the history, growth, and obsession of baseball in the Dominican Republic and how it has affected the country’s relations with the United States.

Lipsitz, George. Footsteps in the Dark. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007. While this is a broad look at all music genres, there is a very good chapter on merengue and the hidden history of the Dominican migration.

Pacini Hernandez, Deborah. Bachata: A Social History of Dominican Popular Music. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1995. Often called the country music or blues of the Dominican Republic, bachata emerged in the 1960s and has been enjoying a resurgence since Juan Luis Guerra won a Latin Grammy award in 1992. This book examines the culture and politics of bachata as a stand-alone medium and in relationship to merengue.

Ruck, Rob. The Tropic of Baseball: Baseball in the Dominican Republic. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1999. The history and present state of Dominican baseball, its impact on the country’s collective dream, and its effect on society as a whole.

Sellers, Julie A. Merengue and Dominican Identity: Music as National Unifier. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2004. Music and dance is the unifying thread that connects all Dominicans, whether at home or abroad. Book and CD edition.

Ecology

Bond, James. A Field Guide to the Birds of the West Indies. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1999. This is a very thorough catalog of more than 400 birds in the West Indies.

Latta, Steven, et al. Birds of the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006. This is an indispensable guide when bird-watching in the Dominican Republic.

Poinar, George O., and Roberta Poinar. The Amber Forest: A Reconstruction of a Vanished World. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999. The resin of the algorrobo tree created a sap 15–45 million years ago. The authors of this book use their knowledge of amber today to recreate what the Dominican ecosystem would’ve been like back when the sap still flowed.

Spalding, Mark. A Guide to the Coral Reefs of the Caribbean. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2004. This guide is endorsed by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) for those who not only want to explore the reefs of the Caribbean, but who also want to protect them.

Adventure

Bory, Marc. Kitesurfing. Paris: Fitway Publishing, 2005. A guide to help you become a real kitesurfing fanatic.

Boyce, Jeremy. The Ultimate Book of Power Kiting and Kiteboarding. Augusta, GA: The Lyons Press, 2004. A good resource for learning how to buy a kite, care for the equipment, and how to use it.

Leubben, Craig. Rock Climbing: Mastering Basic Skills. Seattle, WA: Mountaineers Books, 2004. Plenty of how-to tips on the technique, movement, and strength required when learning how to rock climb. Photos and graphics further illustrate the necessary skills for the novice.

© Ana Chavier Caamaño from Moon Dominican Republic, 4th edition