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Roberto G. Fernández

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Roberto G. Fernández
Born (1951-09-24) 24 September 1951 (age 73)
Sagua la Grande
OccupationNovelist, short story writer
NationalityCuban, American
Period1974–present
Genresatire
Notable worksRaining Backwards
Holy Radishes!
Literature portal

Roberto G. Fernández (born 24 September 1951) is a Cuban American novelist and short story writer. He is noted for his grotesque satires of the Cuban American community, especially in his English-language novels, Raining Backwards and Holy Radishes! In 2001, he was named the Dorothy Lois Breen Hoffman Professor of Modern Languages and Linguistics at Florida State University.[1]

Biography

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Early life

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Fernández's family immigrated to the States in 1961, when Fernández was 10. He grew up in Miami, which he now considers his home, although he lives and teaches in Tallahassee, Florida.[citation needed]

Literary work

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Fernández has been said to be part of the Cuban American avant-garde.[2] His writing is said to

engage the links among history, exile, personal, and collective identity, and simultaneously defamiliarize them through parody and pastiche, counteracting in such a move the underlying poignancy of the diasporic experience.[3]

Fernández is known for the way he satirizes the Cuban community in Miami. One critic says that he "has mastered like no other the carnivalesque art of portraying grotesquely a community in a perpetual state of crisis".[4] For instance, Raining Backwards depicts a generation "caught between two cultural worlds that they do not fully understand and to which they do not fully belong".[5]

Although Fernández's first two books, written in Spanish, were "well received within the Cuban exile literary community",[6] he did not gain wide critical attention until he published in English.

Published works

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  • Cuentos sin rumbo [Aimless Tales] (story collection; 1975)
  • La vida es un special [Life is a Bargain] (1982)
  • La montaña rusa [The Roller Coaster] (story cycle; 1985)
  • Raining Backwards (1988)
  • Holy Radishes! (1995)
  • En la ocho y la doce [The Corner of Eighth and Twelfth] (2001)
  • Entre dos aguas (2007)
  • Short stories include "Wrong Channel", "The Brewery", "Is in the Stars" and "It’s not Easy"

Awards

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See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Roberto Fernández". Florida State University. Archived from the original on 13 April 2008. Retrieved 16 March 2008.
  2. ^ Isabel Alvarez-Borland, Cuban-American Literature of Exile: From Person to Persona, University of Virginia Press, 1998. p. 97
  3. ^ Jelena Šesnić, From Shadow to Presence, Rodopi, 2007. p. 194.
  4. ^ Jorge Febles, "Am I Whom I Am? Identity Games in US Cuban Literature," in Caulfield and Davis, A Companion to US Latino Literatures, Boydell & Brewer: 2007. p. 80
  5. ^ Alvarez-Borland p. 99
  6. ^ Gabriella Ibieta, "Transcending the Culture of Exile: Raining Backwards", in Bevan, Literature and Exile. Amsterdam: Rodopi; 1990. p. 74

Critical studies in English

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as of April 2012:

  1. Water as Creator and Destroyer of Dreams and (Hyper)Realities: Hydro Symbolism in the Works of Roberto G. Fernández By: David de Posada, http://labelmelatin.com, Volume II, Spring 2012.
  2. Operational (Hyper)realities in the Exilic Labyrinth: Roberto G. Fernández's Construction and Destruction of Identity through Parodic Simulacra By: David de Posada. In: DeRosa, Simulation in Media and Culture: Believing the Hype. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books; 2011. pp& nsbs; 187–197.
  3. Cuban; American Literature: Suspicion of a Rupture in the Assimilation Pattern? By: Humberto López Cruz. In: N: Giordano, The Hyphenate Writer and the Legacy of Exile. New York: Bordighera Press; 2010. pp. 85–97.
  4. Three Waves of Immigration Waving of Immigration:Waving (Wavene) the Flag of Patriotic Fervor By: William O. Deaver. In: Giordano, The Hyphenate Writer and the Legacy of Exile. New York: Bordighera Press; 2010. pp. 67–84.
  5. Operatic Transposition and the Romantic Aesthetic in the Works of Roberto G. Fernández By: David de Posada, "Caribe: Revista de Cultura y Literatura", 11.2 (2009): 23–42.
  6. Treacherous Pilgrimages: Identity and Travel in Roberto G. Fernández's The Augustflower By: Rafael Miguel Montes. In: Glassman, Tolchin, and Brahlek, Florida Studies Proceedings of the 2005 Annual Meeting of the Florida College English Association. Newcastle upon Tyne, England: Cambridge Scholars; 2006. pp. 218–27
  7. Memory and Desire in Exile: The Narrative Strategies of Raining Backwards By: Arlene Guerrero-Watanabe; Caribe: Revista de Cultura y Literatura, 2004 Summer; 7 (1): 25–42.
  8. La tríada Belle Glade, Miami, Xawa: Tres nombres, tres culturas y un solo espacio novelesco en la narrativa de Roberto G. Fernández By: Jorge Febles, Hispanic Journal, 2004 Spring–Fall; 25 (1–2): 225–41.
  9. Roberto G. Fernández (1951–) By: Guillermo B. Irizarry, In: West-Durán, Herrera-Sobek, and Salgado, Latino and Latina Writers, I: Introductory Essays, Chicano and Chicana Authors; II: Cuban and Cuban American Authors, Dominican and Other Authors, Puerto Rican Authors. New York: Scribner's; 2004. pp. 591–611
  10. Janus Identities and Forked Tongues: Two Caribbean Writers in the United States By: Rosanna Rivero Marín. New York: Peter Lang; 2004. viii, 153 pp. (book)
  11. Is Memory the Amnesia You Like? Some Remarks on Self-Invention and the Presence of Caribbean Literature in North America By: Wolfgang Binder, GRAAT: Publication des Groupes de Recherches Anglo-Américaines de l'Université François Rabelais de Tours, 2003; 27: 293–99.
  12. Geographies of Identity in Cuban American Narrative By: Antonia Domínguez Miguela, In: Alonso Gallo and Domínguez Miguela, Evolving Origins, Transplanting Cultures: Literary Legacies of the New Americans. Huelva, Spain: Universidad de Huelva; 2002. pp. 267–75
  13. The Intercepted Space: Desired and Summed Identity in Holly [Holy] Radishes by Cuban American Writer, Roberto G. Fernández By: Clementina R. Adams, Diáspora: Journal of the Annual Afro-Hispanic Literature and Culture Conference, 2001; 11: 66–71.
  14. Generational Conflicts in Raining Backwards by Roberto G. Fernández By: Henry Pérez, Publications of the Arkansas Philological Association, 2000 Fall; 26 (2): 33–44.
  15. Memories of Cuba in Roberto G. Fernández's Raining Backwards By: Henry Pérez, Publications of the Arkansas Philological Association, 1998 Fall; 24 (2): 47–57.
  16. Intimate Dwellings: Meditations on Shelter and Sheltered Meditations in Roberto G. Fernández's Coquina House By: William O. Deaver, Jr.; RLA: Romance Languages Annual, 1998; 10 (2): 529–33.
  17. Holy Radishes! Image is Everything By: William O., Deaver, Jr. In: Berry, NAHLS Bringing the World Together. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan; 1997. pp. 218–29
  18. From Polyglossia to Disglossia: Defining Chronotope, Authority, and Subversion in Raining Backwards By: William O. Deaver, Jr.; RLA: Romance Languages Annual, 1997; 9: 448–52.
  19. The Prodigal Son in the Structure of Raining Backwards, Crazy Love, and Latin Jazz By: William O. Deaver, Jr.; Americas Review: A Review of Hispanic Literature and Art of the USA, 1996 Fall–Winter; 24 (3–4): 179–90.
  20. A Technological Novelty in Raining Backwards: The Creation of a Virtual Reality By: Humberto López Cruz, Americas Review: A Review of Hispanic Literature and Art of the USA, 1996 Fall–Winter; 24 (3–4): 191–200.
  21. Menippean Satire and Skaz in Raining Backwards By: William O. Deaver, Jr.; Confluencia: Revista Hispánica de Cultura y Literatura, 1996 Fall; 12 (1): 168–77.
  22. Structure, Theme, Motif, and Dialogue in Raining Backwards By: William O. Deaver, Jr.; Chattahoochee Review: The DeKalb College Literary Quarterly, 1996 Summer; 16 (4): 100–12.
  23. Raining Backwards: Stylization and Mimicry By: William O. Deaver, Jr.; RLA: Romance Languages Annual, 1995; 7: 446–49.
  24. American Contradictions: Interviews with Nine American Writers By: Wolfgang Binder (ed.). Hanover, NH: University Press of New England; 1995.
  25. A Connecticut Yankee in Cuban Miami: Reflections on the Meaning of Underdevelopment and Cultural Change By: Juan Leon, Michigan Quarterly Review, 1994 Fall; 33 (4): 690–701.
  26. A Character's Indictment of Authorial Subterfuge: The Parody of Texts in Roberto G. Fernandez's Fiction By: Jorge Febles, In: Cancalon and Spacagna, Intertextuality in Literature and Film. Gainesville: University Press of Florida; 1994. pp. 21–35
  27. Raining Backwards: Colonization and the Death of a Culture By: William O. Deaver, Jr.; The Americas Review: A Review of Hispanic Literature and Art of the USA, 1993 Spring; 21 (1): 112–18.
  28. English and Spanish Pop Songs as Part of Character Speech: Cultural Hybridity in Roberto G. Fernández's Raining Backwards By: Jorge Febles, IN: Ryan-Ransom, Imagination, Emblems and Expressions: Essays on Latin American, Caribbean, and Continental Culture and Identity. Bowling Green, OH: Popular; 1993. pp. 99–108
  29. Gender in Exile: Mothers and Daughters in Roberto G. Fernández's Raining Backwards By: Mary S. Vásquez, IN: Whitlark and Aycock, The Literature of Emigration and Exile. Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press; 1992. pp. 79–85
  30. Family, Generation, and Gender in Two Novels of Cuban Exile: Into the Mainstream? By: Mary S. Vásquez, The Bilingual Review/La revista bilingüe, 1991 Jan–Apr; 16 (1): 23–34.
  31. The Fantastic and the Grotesque in the Fiction of Roberto Fernández: The Case of Raining Backwards By: Mary S. Vásquez, Confluencia: Revista Hispanica de Cultura y Literatura, 1990 Fall; 6 (1): 75–84.
  32. Parody, Intertextuality and Cultural Values in Roberto G. Fernández' Raining Backwards By: Mary S. Vásquez, The Americas Review: A Review of Hispanic Literature and Art of the USA, 1990 Summer; 18 (2): 92–102.
  33. Transcending the Culture of Exile: Raining Backwards By: Gabriella Ibieta, In: Bevan, Literature and Exile. Amsterdam: Rodopi; 1990. pp. 67–76
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