San Lorenzo (Vonnegut)

The Republic of San Lorenzo is a fictional country from the Kurt Vonnegut satire Cat's Cradle (1963), where much of the book's second half takes place.

San Lorenzo is a tiny, rocky island nation located in the Caribbean Sea, positioned in the relative vicinity of Puerto Rico. San Lorenzo has only one city, its seaside capital of Bolivar. The country's form of government is a dictatorship, under the rule of ailing President "Papa" Monzano, who is a fierce ally of the United States and a staunch opponent to communism. No legislature exists. The infrastructure of San Lorenzo is described as being dilapidated, consisting of worn buildings, dirt roads, an impoverished populace, and having only one automobile taxi running in the entire country.

The language of San Lorenzo is a fictitious English-based creole language that is referred to as "the San Lorenzan dialect." The San Lorenzan National Anthem is based on the tune of Home on the Range. Its flag consists of a U.S. Marine Corps corporal's stripes on a blue field, and its currency named corporals, at a rate of two corporals for every United States dollar; both the flag and the monetary unit are named after U.S. Marine Corporal Earl McCabe, who deserted his company while stationed at Port-au-Prince during the American occuption in 1922, and on transit to Miami, was shipwrecked on San Lorenzo. McCabe, along with accomplice Lionel Boyd Johnson from Tobago, would together throw out the island's governing sugar company, and after a period of anarchy, proclaimed a republic.

San Lorenzo also has its own native religion, Bokononism, a religion based on enjoying life through its untruths, and that people are designated into groups. Bokononism, founded by McCabe's accomplice Lionel Johnson, however, is outlawed by McCabe, with Bokononists liable to be punished by being impaled on a hook. However, Bokononism privately remains the dominant religion of nearly everyone on the island.

San Lorenzo seems satirically based on Haiti, Nicaragua, Honduras, and other nations which have been nicknamed banana republics due to their histories of European imperialism, colonial relationships with fruit and sugar corporations, and frequent political, military interference and aid from the United States. San Lorenzo's premier, "Papa" Monzano, is perhaps influenced from Haiti's President François Duvalier, known also as "Papa Doc". Bokononism itself seems to be loosely based on Voodoo and Catholicism, themselves also very prominent in Haiti.