The Dominican Republic claims Christopher Columbus as one of its first writers due to the immense fascination with his logs and journals. Since his time, a number of Dominica authors have stepped forward to help bring literature to their country. The majority of writers that dominate this field are from powerful Dominican families, while earlier literary authors came from within the church.
Church leaders were responsible for leading the colonies in both their spiritual and intellectual lives and it stands to reason that they would be influential in literary works as well. One of the most well known was a man by the name of Friar Bartolome de Las Casa. The Friar started a style of literary nostalgic writing called Indigenismo with his literary work entitled Apologetic Historias de Los Indios. His work helped spread the Indigenismo movement throughout the Dominican Republic and further throughout Mexico and the United States as well.
Another author that had a great influence on Dominican literature was the poet Felix Maria del Monte. He is known as the father of Dominican literature due to his patriotic literary writings. His work became popular when the Dominican Republic’s way of life was under attack during the Haitian invasion. This writing gave the people the will to fight and hold on to their culture.
A more recent Dominican author of note is Hilma Contreras who began writing in 1937 and is described as the Dominican Republic’s best writer of short stories. She is the author of Facetas de la vida, Entre DOS Silencios, and other short stories. In 2002 she became the first woman to win the National Literary Award since its beginning in 1949.
Another author that has had a wide spread influence and is considered one of the most famous is Arambilet. He is considered to be the creator of the first short story, as well as the creator of graphical poetry. His poems used a blend of both words and graphics; whereby, he began using computerized line text art to convey his message. This revolutionized the way poetry was seen and done. He also won the Dominican National Literary Award for his short stories and his novel Neguri’s Secret.
Considering the large number of famous and influential authors in the Dominican Republic, it would be safe to say that getting work published is no harder there than anywhere else today. Although as I previously mentioned, a few authors have the bonus of belonging to powerful Dominican families, which most probably helps in getting their work noticed and to the forefront.
Today, there are also a large number of publishers in the Dominican Republic that work exclusively with Latin authors and this gives the writers much more publishing houses to choose from. This jump in publication also comes at a great time for authors can also be attributed to the Dominican Republic recently taking a large step in reducing illiteracy throughout the country by hosting book fairs and allocating funds to this project. Although this may mean a decrease in book prices, it raises the audience for a number of author’s works and will more than likely bring notoriety to literature than ever before in this country.
