(Hardcover) (Paperback)
Angie Cruz
Dominicana
(Flatiron Books, hardcover September 2019, paperback August 2020)
Shortlisted for the 2020 Women’s Prize
Good Morning America’s inaugural pick for their new book club GMA Cover to Cover
YALSA 2020 Alex Award Winner
2020 RUSA Book and Media Awards Notable Books: Fiction
Longlisted for an Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence: Fiction
Longlisted for the Aspen Words Literary Prize
Longlisted for the L.D. and LaVerne Harrell Clark Fiction Prize
A Real Simple Best Books of 2019
An Audible Best of 2019 pick
An Apple Books Best Books of September
An Amazon Best Book of September pick
A Book of the Month Club August 2019 Selection
One of Time‘s “Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2019”
An Indies Next September 2019 Pick
One of New York Times‘s “17 New Books to Watch for in September”
One of Publishers Lunch‘s ‘Emerging Voices’ picks in their “Buzz Books Fall/Winter Preview 2019”
One of The Booklist Reader‘s “13 Fall Faves, Speed-Dating Style”
One of LitHub‘s “Most Anticipated Books of 2019”
One of The Millions‘s Most Anticipated Books of 2019
One of AARP‘s “Best Fiction of Fall 2019” Picks
One of Washington Post‘s “The 10 books to read in September”
Featured in Entertainment Weekly‘s “Fall Books Preview: The 40 biggest titles of the season”
One of Buzzfeed‘s “Most Exciting Books Coming Out This Fall”
Recommended by Jacqueline Woodson in Vanity Fair
One of HelloGiggles‘ “11 Best New Books to Read in September”
One of Kirkus Reviews‘ “30 Most Anticipated Fiction Books for Fall”
Included on Chicago Review of Books‘ “Best Books of September 2019”
One of Real Simple‘s “Best Books of 2019 (So Far)”
Included on Nylon‘s “34 Books You’ll Want to Read This Fall”
Featured on Bustle‘s “In A Reading Slump? 20 Captivating New Books From 2019 to Snap You Out Of It”
One of Esquire‘s Best Books of Fall 2019
Featured on NBC News‘s list of Great New Books to Read for Latinx Heritage Month
One of Brit + Co‘s “10 Books That Are Perfect for your Fall Book Club”
Featured on Parade’s list of books to read based on your favorite TV shows
One of Frolic‘s “10 Books That Make The Perfect Travel Companion”
One of Working Mother‘s “12 Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2019”
One of Bustle‘s “Best New Literary Fiction Books Out Now”
On BookRiot‘s “8 Captivating New Historical Fiction Books to Read this Fall”
One of Esquire‘s Best Books of 2019 (so far)
One of NBC‘s Best Latino Books
Girls’ Night In December Book Club pick
One of Isabel Allende’s favorite books of 2019
Recommend by Jacqueline Woodson on GoodReads
Featured on The Washington Post‘s “August Paperback Releases: 14 books to read now”
On Good Housekeeping‘s list of “20 Best Books by Latinx Authors to Read Right Now”
From IMPAC Dublin Award finalist Angie Cruz, an urgent, beautifully told novel about a Dominican teenager’s arranged marriage and immigration to New York City, set against the political turmoil of the 1960s.
Fifteen-year-old Ana Cancion never dreamed of moving to America, the way the girls she grew up with in the Dominican countryside did. But when Juan Ruiz proposes and promises to take her to New York City, she has to say yes. It doesn’t matter that he is twice her age, that there is no love between them. Their marriage is an opportunity for her entire close-knit family to eventually immigrate. So on New Year’s Day, 1965, Ana leaves behind everything she knows and becomes Ana Ruiz, a wife confined to a cold six-floor walk-up in Washington Heights. Lonely and miserable, Ana hatches a reckless plan to escape. But at the bus terminal, she is stopped by Cesar, Juan’s free-spirited younger brother, who convinces her to stay.
As the Dominican Republic slides into political turmoil, Juan returns to protect his family’s assets, leaving Cesar to take care of Ana. Suddenly, Ana is free to take English lessons at a local church, lie on the beach at Coney Island, see a movie at Radio City Music Hall, go dancing with Cesar, and imagine the possibility of a different kind of life in America. When Juan returns, Ana must decide once again between her heart and her duty to her family.
Praise for Dominicana
“An intimate portrait of the transactional nature of marriage and the economics of both womanhood and citizenship, one all too familiar to many first-generation Americans.”
–New York Times Book Review
“I have been eagerly waiting for a new book from Angie Cruz. So glad the time has come.”
—Edwidge Danticat, author of Brother I’m Dying and Breath, Eyes, Memory
“A tale from that island called girlhood. Cruz describes this shipwrecked age with giddy accuracy. A season of hope, vulnerability, and disaster. Especially for a girl of color. Gorgeous writing, gorgeous story.”
—Sandra Cisneros, author of The House on Mango Street
“Through a novel with so much depth, beauty, and grace, we, like Ana, are forever changed.”
–Jacqueline Woodson, author of Red at the Bone
“This gorgeous new novel by Angie Cruz holds an unflinching gaze on one young immigrant woman’s life–its hardships, its hopes, and its richly depicted loves. Ana’s story is filled with music and reverence for survival, and for joy. An essential read for our times.”
—Cristina Garcia, author of Dreaming in Cuban
“Dominicana is beautiful, engaging, and cuts right to the heart of what it is to be a dutiful young female from a poor country who is bright in every sense of the word, full of love and hope.”
—Mary Gaitskill, author of The Mare and Veronica
“From the very first sentence of Dominicana, we remember why we’ve missed Cruz. This coming-of-age novel with its unforgettable young heroine takes on the pressing questions of the day—immigration, identity, the claim to Americanness—with a deceptively light touch and a whole lot of charm.”
—Ayana Mathis, author of The Twelve Tribes of Hattie
“Cruz is a hero, a heartbreaker, and a visionary. Dominicana is a thrilling, necessary portrait of what it means to be an immigrant in America.”
—Patricia Engel, author of The Veins of The Ocean and Vida
“This story feels so right for this moment. Cruz captures the texture and tenor of being an immigrant woman, caught between worlds and loyalties.”
—Julia Alvarez, author of In the Time of The Butterflies
“An important novel that illuminates a world and time with truth and originality. Cruz is a brilliant novelist and her characters are unforgettable.”
—Jennifer Clement, author of Gun Love and President of PEN International
“Cruz shows how a moment in one country can reverberate for years in another. Dominicana is a fearless novel, laying bare the bewildering decisions made and revisited throughout the uncertain process of immigration and long after it ends.”
—Idra Novey, author of Those Who Knew
“The intimate workings of Ana’s mind are sometimes childlike and sometimes tortured, and her growth and gradually blooming wisdom is described with a raw, expressive voice. Cruz’s winning novel will linger in the reader’s mind long after the close of the story.”
—Publisher’s Weekly (Starred Review)
“In Cruz’s rendering, the inevitability of hardship and the excitement of new possibilities makes for an affectingly complex journey into adulthood. Expect this to mark the author’s breakout.”
–Entertainment Weekly
“In her third novel, Dominicana, Cruz writes with warmth, empathy and remarkable perception about the immigrant experience. Engaging and illuminating, Dominicana will appeal to readers who’ve enjoyed novels by Sandra Cisneros and Julia Alvarez.”
–Bookpage
” This stirring immigration story is Cruz’s breakout book; it should be heralded alongside Julia Alvarez’s How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents.”
–Library Journal (starred review)
“A story of sacrifice, strength and love.”
–Houston Chronicle
“This novel about the immigrant experience in America and choosing survival over love is remarkable. Dominicana is set in 1965 New York City, but the story feels especially timely in today’s climate.”
–Hello Giggles
“Dominicana describes the fear, anxiety and nostalgia immigrants feel when they first land here… Very rarely have I ever heard their stories reflected as accurately as I see them in Cruz’s work… Dominicana captures how our culture—like so many others—is built on the backs of women. Women who clean. Women who birth, who sacrifice. Women who survive.”
–America Magazine, Olga Segura
“In nimble prose, Cruz animates the simultaneous reluctance and vivacity that define her main character as she attempts to balance filial duty with personal fulfillment, and contends with leaving one home to build another that is both for herself and for her family.”
–The New Yorker
“At once tender, musical, and electric, this novel meditates on how immigration shapes lives, from both without and within.”
–Esquire
“Dominicana is a triumphant return for Cruz, 14 years after the publication of her last novel. The journey of Ana Canción is one of the most evocative and empowering immigrant stories of our time.”
–Rigoberto González, NBC News
“Told in first person, in an unadorned voice both childlike and wise, Dominicana takes us inside the mind of its very young narrator. We experience that lonely Washington Heights apartment, which smells “at best, like wet cardboard, at worst like something dead,” with her — and travel in her mind, as Cruz elegantly shows us how Ana, whenever she closes her eyes, is home again. And a small miracle happens in the book’s pages; not quite a happy ending, but the emergence of character who wasn’t there before. By the novel’s end, it’s Ana but not Ana, a woman bravely setting forth on a new life, finding and conquering America on her own newly learned terms, and facing a future as hopeful as an infant’s bright eyes.”
–Seattle Times, Moira Macdonald
“[Dominicana] is a novel that dares you to put it down, that rings with truth in every page while it entertains and offers tender and heart-wrenching moments in equal measure… Dominicana tells the story of the hollowed-out woman; it gives shape and shadow to a narrative that has been erased and recalls other stories of immigrant women to mind in a way that feels like a long-overdue acknowledgement of all women with similar experiences.”
–Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
“A beautiful generational love story about a woman who leaves the Dominican Republic, moves to New York, and it just doesn’t turn out how she imagined.”
–Elizabeth Acevedo, author of With The Fire On High
“In no time, the listener is Ana’s greatest supporter, wishing her well in her struggle to do her family proud. This audience investment is due to Pena’s performance as well as Cruz’s storytelling.”
–Audiofile
“Following Ana through her first year in 1960s New York is eye-opening and emotional….Dominicana is beautifully and thoughtfully written, and Ana’s story is quietly powerful.”
—BookRiot
“Cruz’s Dominicana is a coming-of-age story about making choices for survival versus love.”
–Real Simple
“Finally, we get to read a searing first-hand account of a Dominican woman who is not only imprisoned in the patriarchy of culture but also in the inequality of the capitalist U.S. in the 1960s.”
–Helena María Viramontes for NBC NEWS
“Ana’s engrossing, lyrically told story illuminates both the pain and the potential triumph of the immigrant experience.”
―People
“The heroine of this wondrous fish-out-of-water story tries to hold steady, knowing ‘a well-placed rock in a river changes the current.’”
―O, the Oprah Magazine
Read The New York Times Book Review of DOMINICANA
Read Angie Cruz’s interview with Shelf Awareness
Read Publisher’s Weekly‘s starred review of DOMINICANA
Listen to Angie Cruz’s playlist for DOMINICANA
DOMINICANA featured in US Weekly Magazine‘s “Dascha Polanco: What’s in My Bag”
Read Angie Cruz’s essay “We are in this together” on Rakuten Kobo
Read an excerpt from DOMINICANA on Remezcla
Read Angie Cruz’s interview with Pittsburgh City Paper
Read Library Journal‘s review of DOMINICANA
Read Houston Chronicle‘s review of DOMINICANA
Read The Oswegonian‘s review of DOMINICANA
Featured on The Millions’ “Tuesday New Release Day”
Featured on Literary Hub‘s “New Books Tuesday”
Featured in Reading Women‘s Newsletter
Read America Magazine‘s review of DOMINICANA
Read The New Yorker‘s review of DOMINICANA
Listen to Angie Cruz’s interview on NPR/WNYC’s All of It
Featured on Seattle Times‘s list of “10 New Releases” recommended by critic Moira Macdonald
Read Pittsburgh Post-Gazette‘s review of DOMINICANA
DOMINICANA is featured in The New York Times roundup “Teenages in The Times: September 2019”
Elizabeth Acevedo recommends DOMINICANA in Bon Appetit’s Healthyish
Independent bookstore Greenlight Brooklyn recommends DOMINICANA in Brooklyn Paper
Listen to Angie Cruz’s interview on the podcast Being Human
Read AudioFile‘s review of the audiobook of DOMINICANA
Read Angie Cruz’s interview with Conde Nast Traveler
Recommended by Lupita Aquino of @Lupita.Reads for Girls’ Night In
Read The Millions‘ feature “Angie Cruz’s Working Women”
Read Angie Cruz in conversation with Red Ink on Literary Hub
Read Angie Cruz’s interview with Girls’ Night In
Recommended by Myriam Gurba in “Beyond American Dirt: the best books to understand Latinx culture” for The Guardian
Zora profiles author Angie Cruz
Remezcla shares about DOMINICANA and the Women’s Prize Shortlist
Jennifer Weiner recommends DOMINICANA in The New York Times
Read Angie Cruz’s interview with Remezcla “Creating in Crisis: On Book Publishing”
See Angie Cruz’s recommendations and feature in Belletrist’s Brief
Angie Cruz gives her 2021 book recommendations on Undomesticated
Angie Cruz is the author of two novels, Soledad and Let It Rain Coffee, and was a finalist in 2007 for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. She has published work in The New York Times, VQR, Gulf Coast Literary Journal, and other publications, and has received fellowships from the New York Foundation of the Arts, Yaddo, and the MacDowell Colony. She is founder and editor in chief of Aster(ix), a literary and arts journal, and is an associate professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh. Dominicana is inspired by her mother’s story.