Suggestions
Use up and down arrows to review and enter to select.Please wait while we process your payment
If you don't see it, please check your spam folder. Sometimes it can end up there.
If you don't see it, please check your spam folder. Sometimes it can end up there.
Please wait while we process your payment
By signing up you agree to our terms and privacy policy.
Don’t have an account? Subscribe now
Create Your Account
Sign up for your FREE 7-day trial
Already have an account? Log in
Your Email
Choose Your Plan
Save over 50% with a SparkNotes PLUS Annual Plan!
Purchasing SparkNotes PLUS for a group?
Get Annual Plans at a discount when you buy 2 or more!
Price
$24.99 $18.74 /subscription + tax
Subtotal $37.48 + tax
Save 25% on 2-49 accounts
Save 30% on 50-99 accounts
Want 100 or more? Contact us for a customized plan.
Your Plan
Payment Details
Payment Summary
SparkNotes Plus
You'll be billed after your free trial ends.
7-Day Free Trial
Not Applicable
Renews April 3, 2023 March 27, 2023
Discounts (applied to next billing)
DUE NOW
US $0.00
SNPLUSROCKS20 | 20% Discount
This is not a valid promo code.
Discount Code (one code per order)
SparkNotes Plus subscription is $4.99/month or $24.99/year as selected above. The free trial period is the first 7 days of your subscription. TO CANCEL YOUR SUBSCRIPTION AND AVOID BEING CHARGED, YOU MUST CANCEL BEFORE THE END OF THE FREE TRIAL PERIOD. You may cancel your subscription on your Subscription and Billing page or contact Customer Support at custserv@bn.com. Your subscription will continue automatically once the free trial period is over. Free trial is available to new customers only.
Choose Your Plan
For the next 7 days, you'll have access to awesome PLUS stuff like AP English test prep, No Fear Shakespeare translations and audio, a note-taking tool, personalized dashboard, & much more!
You’ve successfully purchased a group discount. Your group members can use the joining link below to redeem their group membership. You'll also receive an email with the link.
Members will be prompted to log in or create an account to redeem their group membership.
Thanks for creating a SparkNotes account! Continue to start your free trial.
Please wait while we process your payment
Your PLUS subscription has expired
Please wait while we process your payment
Please wait while we process your payment
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao opens with the narrator describing a curse. Legend tells that this curse originated in Africa and traveled across the Atlantic Ocean on the screams of enslaved Africans. This curse spelled doom for the Tainos, whose world ended when the Europeans arrived, cracking open the “nightmare door” that enabled the takeover of the Antilles island chain in the Caribbean Sea. The name of this curse is fukúamericanus, or just fukú, which the narrator translates loosely as “the Curse and the Doom of the New World.” However, others refer to the curse as “the Admiral,” after the first European to step foot on the island of Hispaniola. This man claimed to have discovered the island, and in so doing, he unleashed the fukú on the world.
Regardless of where it came from, the narrator insists that the curse affects all Caribbean peoples, including those who have moved away from the region and now live in the global Caribbean diaspora. The narrator also emphasizes that fukú isn’t just an ancient story or a harmless legend. People of his parents’ generation truly believed in fukú, and they believed the curse had come to life in the form of a man named Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina.
The narrator inserts a lengthy footnote that offers background history on this political figure. The footnote explains that Trujillo numbered among the twentieth century’s most infamous dictators. He ruled the Dominican Republic between 1930 and 1961 with “a potent (and familiar) mixture of violence, intimidation, massacre, rape, co-optation, and terror.” The narrator continues with a fuller inventory of the many evil deeds Trujillo committed during his reign, then declares the man “our Sauron, or Arawn, our Darkseid, our Once and Future Dictator.”
Returning to the main text, the narrator insists that Trujillo had an intimate, supernatural connection with the fukú curse. Dominicans widely believed that anyone who harbored bad thoughts or spoke ill of Trujillo would meet a terrible end. This explains why everyone who attempted to assassinate Trujillo ended up dead. According to the narrator, it also explains the apparent curse on the Kennedys, a prominent American political family. When President John F. Kennedy approved the assassination of Trujillo in 1961, he brought fukú upon his family.
The narrator also proposes that fukú caused the United States’ disastrous military involvement in Vietnam. Prior to shipping young men off to fight in Vietnam, President Lyndon B. Johnson had launched an illegal invasion of the Dominican Republic. The narrator posits that many of the men who took part in the invasion went straight to Saigon from Santo Domingo and carried fukú with them as “a small repayment for an unjust war.” This example demonstrates that fukú doesn’t strike suddenly, like lightning, but rather works patiently over time.
The narrator explains that every Dominican family has fukú stories. He reveals that he, too, has a fukú story. Yet he also hesitates, indicating that Oscar, the subject of his book, might not have approved of the designation “fukú story.” Oscar’s love for hardcore science fiction and fantasy would have led him to frame the story in terms of genre fiction. He’d have asked: “What more sci-fi than the Santo Domingo? What more fantasy than the Antilles?”
Please wait while we process your payment