“From Plátano Player to Questioning Chronicler—Historiography in Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao”

Abstract

ABSTRACT Junot Díaz’s novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Oscar Wao) is a decolonial project that recognizes coloniality specific to the Dominican Republic and its diaspora. Coloniality is the aftereffect of colonialism – the systems of hierarchy and systems of knowing established 500 years ago that still function today. This article argues that Oscar Wao attempts to undo colonial systems by rewriting history with its footnotes. It also argues that while Fukú Americanus, “the Curse and Doom of the New World,” is the novel’s rich conceptual tool that demonstrates coloniality, the fukú curse is also a symbol of passivity since resigning oneself to it helps coloniality persist (Díaz 1). Narrator Yunior is an epistemic agent whose footnotes help conquer benightedness and neutralize fukú, liberating his mind and his gender performativity from a colonial straitjacket. This article draws on existing scholarship by M. M. Gonzalez, “The Only Way Out Is In, Power, Race, and Sexuality Under Capitalism in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao,” which argues that the novel “elaborate[s] a non-emancipatory version of decolonization” to suggest instead that Oscar Wao argues for an emancipatory stake in decoloniality.