ralentina reviewed Drown by Junot Díaz
Stories about imperfect belonging
4 stars
hese 10 short stories add up, sketching the life of Yunior, his family, and a few other recurring characters. The central theme is the experience of migrants, in particular Dominicans, both at home and in the States. The various narrators all come from this perspective, and seem to leave in a state of discomfort and watchfulness, as if they were expecting something (bad) to happen to them. Longing is also something they do a lot of, whether for their fathers, a woman, a friend, or maybe a home place.
My favourite stories are Drown, and Ysrael. Not so relevant, but for some reason I really loved the epigraph to the book, by Gustavo Perez Firmat, which stuck with me:
“The fact that I am writing to you in English already falsifies what I wanted to tell you.
My subject: how to explain to you that I don't belong to English …
hese 10 short stories add up, sketching the life of Yunior, his family, and a few other recurring characters. The central theme is the experience of migrants, in particular Dominicans, both at home and in the States. The various narrators all come from this perspective, and seem to leave in a state of discomfort and watchfulness, as if they were expecting something (bad) to happen to them. Longing is also something they do a lot of, whether for their fathers, a woman, a friend, or maybe a home place.
My favourite stories are Drown, and Ysrael. Not so relevant, but for some reason I really loved the epigraph to the book, by Gustavo Perez Firmat, which stuck with me:
“The fact that I am writing to you in English already falsifies what I wanted to tell you.
My subject: how to explain to you that I don't belong to English though I belong nowhere else”