The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (my opinion so far)

As I read The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, it overall caught my attention that it appears to be about the atrocities of the Dominican President Rafael Trujillo. As a history lover, it makes me wonder how Trujillo’s legacy created the term “fuku”, a word I partially understand but it confuses me how this fuku is responsible for other problems outside the Dominican Republic.

While reading the book, I was confused on what the word “fuku” meant but then it hit me. From what I read, Fuku is a term that describes some sort of hex that can kill people which it came from a brutal tyrant that was responsible for the massacre of thousands of Haitians. I suspect that it harms those who associate with or oppose Trujillo. It seems like a silly conspiracy theory that contradicts what is written in the history books as well as trying to scare the reader into believing it. One scenario is the author claiming it was not Lee Harvey Oswald that assassinated JFK but the none other than the fuku. Another one is holding the fuku curse accountable for America’s failure in Vietnam (a topic I studied and did a report on last year) instead of US government turmoil caused by the Gulf of Tonkin. Finally, for those who do not believe in fuku (like me), the book reads, “No matter what you believe, fuku believes in you”, a statement I found slightly eerie yet completely ridiculous. I question if this fuku book is dark comedy. If not, I would like to ask if people would mostly agree with the cause of mishaps during that time.