Rosales Herrera, Raúl

Dr. Rosales Herrera is an Assistant Professor of Spanish at Drew University. He received his Ph.D. in Hispanic Literatures and Cultures from Columbia University.

Fictional First-Person Discourses in Cuban Diaspora Novels

2012 0-7734-2588-8
This book considers Cuban diaspora novels written since 1980, critically examining the autobiographical elements of the works and the authors who wrote them. Incorporating autobiographical theories and Cuban exile history across literary generations, the study analyzes different approaches to fictional self-figuration. It underscores how the autobiographical within fictional discourses does not conceal, but instead reveals more flexible outlets for authorial and diasporic self-representation.
From the beginning the author defines the difference between diaspora and exile. The text then studies three periodic phases in the first-person fictional novels of Cuban writers outside the island, taking into consideration the writers’ own displacement and the nature of the dynamics between exile and adopted country. The author discovers a commonality in all of the novels: strong parallels between history and fiction and overlapping characteristics of the novels’ authors and their narrating protagonists – both displaced subjects. The text represents an important contribution to autobiographical studies and to the study of both Cuban and Latino literature in the United States, but especially to the studies of one of the newest routes of Cuban literature in the world.