Overview

In Pedro Juan Gutiérrez's Dirty Realism: Reinventing Cuban Spaces, Lori Oxford conducts a series of close readings that expound on Gutiérrez’s interpretation of life and reality in the spaces of the Special Period throughout the five works that make up his Ciclo Centro Habana Cycle (1998-2003). Gutiérrez's settings oscillate between the utopian, the dystopian, and the heterotopian in unexpected fashion, often revealing his protagonists’ surprising affinity for the latter two. In her examination of Gutiérrez’s use of these interwoven -topian spaces, Oxford shows how the three spaces, although apparently contradictory, have managed to coexist in Cuba and demonstrates how they are all reflected in Gutiérrez’s fiction, often simultaneously, just as they exist in Cuba’s reality.

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9781666910032

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Reviews

Pedro Juan Gutierrez's Dirty Realism: Reinventing Cuban Spaces is a comprehensive exploration of Gutierrez's narrative writing since the international success of Trilogia sucia de la Habana in 1998. Through close engagement with this writing and with a wide range of ideas and sources, including an extensive interview with Gutierrez, the book traces networks connecting his literary work and persona to two decades of change in Cuba. Taking as a primary conceptual thread the relation between utopian, dystopian and heterotopian thinking, it casts new light on Gutierrez's particular brand of dirty realism, and stands as a welcome contribution to scholarship on his work.--Esther Whitfield, Brown University This is a book for both fans and scholars of Pedro Juan Gutierrez: presenting nuanced interpretations of this scintillating Cuban writer's major novels, extensive context about the economic crisis of the Cuban Special Period, and as a bonus, a long interview with Gutierrez from 2022, Lori Oxford's book opens new avenues of understanding Gutierrez's fiction and makes a compelling case for why we should keep reading his work.--Anke Birkenmaier, Indiana University Bloomington

Pedro Juan Gutiérrez's Dirty Realism: Reinventing Cuban Spaces is a comprehensive exploration of Gutiérrez's narrative writing since the international success of Trilogía sucia de La Habana in 1998. Through close engagement with this writing and with a wide range of ideas and sources, including an extensive interview with Gutiérrez, the book traces networks connecting his literary work and persona to two decades of change in Cuba. Taking as a primary conceptual thread the relation between utopian, dystopian and heterotopian thinking, it casts new light on Gutiérrez's particular brand of dirty realism, and stands as a welcome contribution to scholarship on his work.--Esther Whitfield, Brown University This is a book for both fans and scholars of Pedro Juan Gutiérrez: presenting nuanced interpretations of this scintillating Cuban writer's major novels, extensive context about the economic crisis of the Cuban Special Period, and as a bonus, a long interview with Gutiérrez from 2022, Lori Oxford's book opens new avenues of understanding Gutiérrez's fiction and makes a compelling case for why we should keep reading his work.--Anke Birkenmaier, Indiana University Bloomington

Author Information

Lori Oxford is associate professor of Spanish at Western Carolina University.

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