(Photo Credit:
Marcia
Wilson, taken at the 1st Harlem Book Fair July 1999)
Junot Diaz's fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and The Best American Short Stories. His highly-anticipated first novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, was greeted with rapturous reviews, including Michiko Kakutani in The New York Times calling it "a book that decisively establishes him as one of contemporary fiction's most distinctive and irresistible new voices." His debut story collection, Drown, published eleven years prior to Oscar Wao, was also met with unprecedented acclaim; it became a national bestseller, won numerous awards, and has since grown into a landmark of contemporary literature. Born in the Dominican Republic and raised in New Jersey, Diaz lives in New York City and is a professor of creative writing at MIT.
Junot Diaz visits Google's Mountain View, CA,
headquarters to discuss his novel "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao."
This event took place September 26, 2007, as part of the Authors@Google
Series.
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Click to order via Amazon
Hardcover: 352 pages
Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover (September 6, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1594489580
Winner 2008 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction
"Diaz pulls it off with the same kind of eggheaded urban eloquence found in the work of Paul Beatty (The White Boy Shuffle), Victor LaValle (Slapboxing with Jesus), Mat Johnson (Drop) and his very own Drown. Geek swagger, baby. Get used to it. Notwithstanding his neological dazzle, he's anything but longwinded. And he's patient -- maddeningly so. D'az made us wait 11 years for this first novel and boom! -- it's over just like that. It's not a bad gambit, to always leave your audience wanting more. So brief and wondrous, this life of Oscar. Wow." 'Jabari Asim
This is the long-awaited first novel from one of the most original and memorable writers working today.
Things have never been easy for Oscar, a sweet but disastrously overweight, lovesick Dominican ghetto nerd. From his home in New Jersey, where he lives with his old-world mother and rebellious sister, Oscar dreams of becoming the Dominican J. R. R. Tolkien and, most of all, of finding love. But he may never get what he wants, thanks to the Fuk'-the curse that has haunted the Oscar's family for generations, dooming them to prison, torture, tragic accidents, and, above all, ill-starred love. Oscar, still waiting for his first kiss, is just its most recent victim.
D'az immerses us in the tumultuous life of Oscar and the history of the family at large, rendering with genuine warmth and dazzling energy, humor, and insight the Dominican-American experience, and, ultimately, the endless human capacity to persevere in the face of heartbreak and loss. A true literary triumph, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao confirms D'az as one of the best and most exciting voices of our time.
Drown
Click to order via Amazon
Paperback: 224 pages
Publisher: Riverhead Trade (July 1, 1997)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1573226068
The 10 tales in this intense debut collection plunge us into the emotional lives of people redefining their American identity. Narrated by adolescent Dominican males living in the struggling communities of the Dominican Republic, New York and New Jersey, these stories chronicle their outwardly cool but inwardly anguished attempts to recreate themselves in the midst of eroding family structures and their own burgeoning sexuality. The best pieces, such as "Aguantando" (to endure), "Negocios," "Edison, NJ" and the title story, portray young people waiting for transformation, waiting to belong. Their worlds generally consist of absent fathers, silent mothers and friends of questionable principles and morals. Diaz's restrained prose reveals their hopes only by implication. It's a style suited to these characters, who long for love but display little affection toward each other. Still, the author's compassion glides just below the surface, occasionally emerging in poetic passages of controlled lyricism, lending these stories a lasting resonance. 'Copyright 1996 Publishers Weekly
Johnson's work is included in the following anthologies:
The Best African American Fiction
(2009)Paperback: 336
pages
Publisher: Bantam (January 13, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0553385348
ISBN-13: 978-0553385342
Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1 inches
Introducing the first volume in an exciting
new annual anthology featuring the year's most outstanding
fiction by some of today's finest African American writers.
From stories that depict black life in times gone by to those
that address contemporary issues, this inaugural volume gathers
the very best recent African American fiction. Created during a
period of electrifying political dialogue and cultural, social,
and economic change that is sure to captivate the imaginations
of writers and readers for years to come, these short stories
and novel excerpts explore a rich variety of subjects. But most
of all, they represent exceptional artistry.
Here youill find work by both established names and
up-and-comers, ranging from Walter Dean
Myers to Chimamanda
Ngozi Adichie, Mat Johnson,
and Junot Diaz. They write about
subjects as diverse as the complexities of black middle-class
life and the challenges of interracial relationships, a
modern-day lynching in the South and a young musician's
coming-of-age during the
Harlem Renaissance.
What unites these stories, whether set in suburbia, in
eighteenth-century New York City, or on a Caribbean island that
is supposed to be "brown skin paradise," is their creators'
passionate engagement with matters of the human heart.
Masterful and engaging, this first volume of Best African
American Fiction features stories you'll want to savor, share,
and return to again and again.
