28th Annual Literary Events Benefiting 826 Valencia Junot Diaz

Fans of Junot Díaz's debut collection of short stories, Drown, have had an eleven-year wait for a follow-up. With the publication of his first novel, The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, in 2007, Díaz more than fulfilled his early promise. The novel drew a groundswell of critical and popular praise, culminating in a 2008 Pulitzer Prize for the work. Born in the Dominican Republic, Díaz draws heavily on his own experience of American culture as an immigrant standing with one foot in the country he left as a boy, and one in the New Jersey landscape that serves as a backdrop for his story. With language influenced by a love of science fiction, The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao follows the journey of young Oscar de Leon, and his struggles to navigate life as a "ghetto nerd" in urban New Jersey and back in the Dominican Republic. Díaz's language shimmers with street slang, accessible Spanglish and quirky asides, footnotes and digressions. In 2000, he helped found the Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation, that gives writing workshops for writers-of-color. Díaz teaches creative writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.