"A timely treatise on the 'truth' about Trujillo as documented in fictional and nonfictional accounts of that unforgettable epoch in world history."--James J. Davis, Howard University

"This book rescues from oblivion the voice of numerous relevant Dominican authors and demythifies from a new perspective the concept of Dominican national identity."--José I. Suarez, University of Northern Colorado

Rafael Trujillo, dictator of the Dominican Republic from 1930 until his assassination in 1961, is still heavily mythologized among Dominicans to this day. God and Trujillo, the first book-length study of works about the Dominican dictator, seeks to explain how some of those myths were created by analyzing novels and testimonials about Trujillo from Dominican writers to canonical Latin American authors, including Mario Vargas Llosa and Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Trujillo's quasi-mythological figure created a compelling corpus of literary works. Ignacio Lopez-Calvo's study offers a vigorous analysis of 36 narrative texts. He analyzes the representation of the dictator as a mythological figure, his legacy, the role of his doubles, his favorite courtiers and acolytes, and the role of women during the so-called Era of Trujillo.

He also traces the evolution and significance of these narratives from a theoretical perspective that falls within the cultural studies framework. The study of the Dominican testimonio and the unveiling of the Taino myth in the "Trujillato narratives" are particularly innovative. In addition, he describes class antagonism and the demythification of the leftist militant in the Trujillato narratives. He also offers an illuminating account of the Dominican left and of the anti-Trujillo resistance as contained in Dominican literature.

Ignacio Lopez-Calvo is associate professor of Spanish at California State University, Los Angeles.

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"An unprecedented and ambitious literary and cultural synthesis of biographies, historical fiction, and even musical compositions that have focused on Trujillo with varying degrees of verisimilitude." "Highly recommended."
--Choice

"A masterful job of situating the international bestsellers in relation to the Dominican novels of the Trujillato, as well as elucidating how these fictional narratives relate to the real history of the regime."
--New West Indian Guide

"A valuable contribution to our understanding of the causes and effects of Rafael Trujillo's regime."
--The International Fiction Review