Writing Conflict to End Conflict: Reconciliatory Writing in Cristina García’s "Dreaming in Cuban", "The Agüero Sisters" and "King of Cuba"

Abstract

The building of bridges between Cuba and the US has been ongoing for a long time, not least by artists. Reconciliation work preceding the commencement of diplomatic relations between Cuba and the US encompasses, for example, novelist Cristina García’s Dreaming in Cuban (1992), The Agüero Sisters (1997), and King of Cuba (2013). I argue that these novels take on the task of lessening polarizations with the aspiration of furthering reconciliation processes through concentrating on the divisiveness between families and politics within the Cuban communities, focusing on the island Cubans and the US Cuban diaspora. García writes conflict to end conflict and this is, I claim, her strongest contribution to the reconciliation processes. In the last part of the article I briefly discuss how I use the concept of translation to theorize the relationship between fiction and reality.