Dictatorship, Machismo, and the Cuban Exile Drama in a Tragicomic Mode: Cristina García’s King of Cuba

Abstract

"Dictatorship, Machismo, and the Cuban Exile Drama in a Tragicomic Mode: Cristina García’s King of Cuba. Three years before the death of Fidel Castro, Cuban American author Cristina García published a fictional account of the Cuban dictator’s death in a darkly funny and sentimental story of intertwined destinies, ironies of fate, machismo, failure and suffering. With El Comandante and a fellow octogenarian émigré as protagonists, García launches into a fictional exploration of Cuban masculinity, machismo, the dictator’s fate, vanity, and failure. Written in what I will argue is a tragicomic mode, balancing the tragic and the comic, the horrendous and the laughable, the pitiful and the ridiculous, the novel reflects different perspectives on sensitive topics for Cubans on both sides of the Florida Straits, challenging preconceived ideas and inviting the reader to reflect on the relativity of truth. Keywords: Fidel Castro, dictatorship, machismo, Cuban American community, satire, tragicomic mode "