The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

The novel begins with the narrator's description of the curse, called fukú americanus—a curse of doom, specifically that of the New World. It was brought over to the islands of Antilles when the Europeans came, and has stayed ever since. The narrator makes the claim that the late dictator, Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina, has a close connection with fukú. The narrator informs the reader that he will be telling us the story of Oscar de León, who was the victim of his family’s fukú. The only known way to counteract a fukú is to use the term “zafa” to ward off the curse. The narrator then wonders if writing this book is his way of saying a zafa. You can check out more at the GradeSaver summary below: