Dique Dominican is the powerful debut memoir from Ayendy Bonifacio, born "near a mango-steepled, river-scented town" in the Dominican Republic and raised in Brooklyn after migrating as a child. With lyrical precision and emotional honesty, Bonifacio reflects on the immigrant experience, identity, language, and belonging.
“'Near a mango-steepled river-scented town'” in the Dominican Republic, a writer was born. Everyone has a story, and for all those marginalized in the United States, it is our duty to tell what we have lived. In this debut memoir, Ayendy Bonifacio, who migrated as a child to Brooklyn, has done it well. By giving his life meaning, Dique encourages overlapping communities to join in and also lift their voices high. These times demand such acts of courage and skill."
—Ana Castillo, poet, activist, and novelist, author of The Mixquiahuala Letters, So Far From God, and Massacre of the Dreamers.
"A brutally raw, poignant, and literary coming-of-age memoir."
“Language is home—and isn’t. It makes room for us, allowing us comfort. Or it proscribes us, sending us into the vertigo of exile. In Dique Dominican, [Bonifacio] gets lost and found as he navigates the interstices where words struggle for meaning. A courageous, Babel-like journey!”
—Ilan Stavans, cultural commentator, TV personality and author of On Borrowed Words and general editor of The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature