Rafael Trujillo: boss of a banana republic
It might seem hard to believe these days, but 50 years ago the Caribbean was one of the United States’ biggest foreign-policy headaches. If today [...]
View ArticleMassacre River of blood
The placid Massacre River (or Río Massacre) seems to belie its ominous name. Running in wide shallow bends and occasional faster-flowing channels, the forty-mile watercourse [...]
View ArticleThe taste of home: Christmas recipes from the Dominican Republic
It’s easy to underestimate the importance of Christmas for Dominicans. Other countries celebrate many holidays with equal fervour, but this is not the case in [...]
View ArticleRescued by racism
Seventy years ago, in November 1938, Germany’s Jews were feeling increasingly threatened and trapped. The Nazi onslaught on the ninth of the month, the infamous [...]
View ArticleJunot Díaz: the wao factor
Junot Díaz was born on New Year’s Eve, 1968 in a barrio of Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. When he was six he relocated [...]
View ArticleTourism drive in the Dominican Republic
For more than 20 years, the Dominican Republic has been known as a Caribbean leader in all-inclusive vacations, competing with the likes of Cuba and [...]
View ArticleThe shot at the mercy gate
The Haitian Revolution, a titanic thirteen-year struggle that ended slavery in the Caribbean’s most prosperous colony, has rightly been seen as an epoch-defining event. The demise of French-owned St...
View ArticleUnravelling the Great Dictator, Rafael Trujillo
There’s a good story told by the American journalist William Krehm, who visited the Dominican Republic in the 1940s. That was the heyday of the Great Dictator, Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, who had seized...
View ArticleThe Man Who Wanted to be a Horse
One day I was contemplating the mystery of Carnival in my sunny apartment in San José de Oruña, Trinidad, when the telephone rang. “Can you go to the Dominican Republic tomorrow?” asked a disembodied...
View ArticleTough Love: Drown by Junot Diaz
All big cities have their distinct immigrant districts, but New York’s Washington Heights, at the northern tip of Manhattan, is more conspicuously foreign than most. This is the Dominican Republic come...
View ArticleWalking With the Conquerors in the Dominican Republic
I had forgotten one important thing about Santo Domingo. Its ability to surprise. By that I don’t really mean to imply that it’s a shocking sort of place – or no more so than any other capital city....
View ArticleStand apart: Kristy Collado
As a child in the Dominican Republic, designer Kristy Collado found the process of bringing her ideas to life simply magical. Today her jewellery line Chéjo has fashionistas fascinated by the unisex...
View ArticleLeticia Tonos: love story
On 23 September, 2013, an extraordinary event occurred in the Dominican Republic. In a ruling viewed throughout the Caribbean and beyond as a human-rights catastrophe, the country’s constitutional...
View ArticleBookshelf (March/April 2002)
PICK OF THE MONTH Collected Poems 1937-1989 A. J. Seymour, ed. Ian McDonald & J. de Weever (Blue Parrot Press 2000, 303pp) Small birds came singing at morning and they fled When night approached....
View ArticleNo money, no love
Laura Amelia Guzmán is recounting a story that would make any filmmaker shiver with dread. Last November at the International Film Festival of India in Goa, with ten minutes of the screening of her and...
View ArticleHead for heights | Round Trip
There’s nothing like the thrill of a higher perspective, far above the ground — from ziplining to rock-climbing to floating in a hot-air balloon. Get ready to soar The post Head for heights | Round...
View ArticlePeak to peak | Bucket list
Towering over the Caribbean’s often-photographed beaches and bays are gruelling hikes to challenge even the hardiest outdoor adventurers. Kristine de Abreu takes you up the island peaks that summon the...
View ArticleVictoria Linares: “It gave them a sense of being seen” | Screen buzz
Victoria Linares’ second feature, which screens at this year’s T&T Film Festival, continues the filmmaker’s assured manipulation of artifice and performance — exposing cinema’s seductive lies — to...
View ArticleGames wide open | The games
With the 2024 Olympic Games set for 26 July–11 August in Paris, Terrence Clarke highlights some of the Caribbean medal hopefuls aiming to write their names into Olympic — and Caribbean — history The...
View Article“We wanted to play with fiction and reality” | Film buzz
Jonathan Ali talks to Yoel Morales, the Dominican (Republic) director of Bionico’s Bachata The post “We wanted to play with fiction and reality” | Film buzz appeared first on Caribbean Beat Magazine.
View Article