Redescubriendo a Caliban: futurismos monstruosos en tres novelas de ciencia ficcion por autoras del Caribe hispano

This dissertation examines how Caribbean science fiction (SF) engages with resistance, identity, and futurity through the figure of Caliban. Drawing from The Tempest and Roberto Fernández Retamar’s Caliban (1971), this study explores how SF subverts colonial discourses, reclaims monstrosity, and imagines alternative futures. Through an analysis of three novels—Dealing in Dreams (2019) by Lilliam Rivera, La mucama de Omicunlé (2015) by Rita Indiana, and Fábulas de una abuela extraterrestre (1988) by Daína Chaviano—this project highlights how SF integrates Afro-Taino spiritualities, anti-capitalist and anti-patriarchal critiques, and speculative temporalities to forge alternative epistemologies beyond Western paradigms. The dissertation is structured around three core concepts: violence, monstrosity, and fear. The first chapter situates SF within a Caribbean context, tracing its role as a counter-hegemonic discourse contesting dominant historical and ideological narratives. The second chapter explores Dealing in Dreams and its critique of systemic violence, particularly its deconstruction of utopian and dystopian models through a queer lens. The third chapter examines monstrosity and hybridity in La mucama de Omicunlé, analyzing how Rita Indiana challenges Western notions of identity, history, and progress through Afro-Caribbean and Taino cosmovisions and nonlinear temporalities. The final chapter considers fear as both a tool of control and resistance, assessing how Fábulas de una abuela extraterrestre subverts ideological oppression and reclaims speculative imagination as defiance. By positioning SF as a space of radical imagination, this dissertation argues that the genre serves as a critical response to colonialism, and sociopolitical oppression, ultimately transforming Caliban into a figure of speculative rebellion.