Book Description

Realismo sucio has become a widely marketed and internationally recognized literary and cinematic style in contemporary Latin America. Both in film and literature, realismo sucio categorically rejects the idealism or utopianism that underpinned earlier movements such as Third Cinema and magic realism. Realismo sucio, like the Latin American identity it purports to represent, escapes easy definition. Beginning with the notion that identity derives from a multiplicity of conflicting or competing sources, the idea of a unique definition of identity is supplanted by far more complex and even perplexing representations of a negotiated identity. In this dissertation I examine Pedro Juan Gutierrez's Trilogia sucia de La Habana, and El Rey de La Habana, films by Víctor Gaviria - Rodrigo D, La vendedora de rosas and Medellín: Sumas y restas - and Junot Díaz's Drown and "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao". These authors partake in Latin-American realismo sucio from a negation and distancing from the traditional representation of identity. By means of his minimalist prose and crude language, Gutiérrez rejects the Cuban neo-baroque tradition, while following Cabrera Infante's ideal of representing the language of the street. The failure of the promise of a new Cuba is implied in the disenchantment that characterizes his language and characters. Gaviria aims to bring to light the invisible Medellín, with the pervasive violence as a disjointing factor in the projected identity of a people. He breaks Colombian molds of filming and rejects overly-dramatized productions, while achieving a more natural, quasi-documentary filmic text. Díaz breaks writing schemes. He breaks into the mainstream of Dominican and US narrative, while talking about the marginalized, especially the tíguere and pariguayo, archetypes of masculinity. By means of his stories and style, Díaz questions not only Dominican-American identity, but also the parameters of inclusion in realismo sucio.