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Junot Díaz

ジュノ・ディアス

Junot Díaz

Profile

Gender
Male
Born
1968-12-31 （Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic）
Nationality
Dominican Republic, United States
Languages
Spanish, English
Residence History
Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic → Parlin, New Jersey, United States → Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States

Career

Occupations
Novelist, Professor, Writer
Active Years
1995-
Affiliations
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Boston Review (former fiction editor), Voices of Our Nation Arts Foundation (founding member)
Memberships
American Academy of Arts and Letters (elected member, 2017)
Influenced By
Toni Morrison, Sandra Cisneros, David Foster Wallace, John Christopher, Gene Wolfe
Influenced
Younger Latino writers, Contemporary American fiction writers

Education

Rutgers University–New Brunswick
English
Degree: BA
Period: 1988–1992
Year of Graduation: 1992
Country: United States
Involved in the creative-writing living-learning community Demarest Hall
Cornell University
Creative writing (MFA)
Degree: MFA
Period: 1993–1995
Year of Graduation: 1995
Country: United States
Wrote much of his first short story collection during the MFA program

Awards

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
2008
Work: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Organization: Pulitzer Prize Board
Result: Winner
MacArthur Fellowship
2012
Organization: MacArthur Foundation
Result: Fellow
National Book Critics Circle Award (Fiction)
2007
Work: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Organization: National Book Critics Circle
Result: Winner
Center for Fiction First Novel Prize
2007
Work: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Organization: Center for Fiction
Result: Winner
PEN/Malamud Award
2002
Organization: PEN America
Result: Winner
Honorary Doctorate (Doctor of Letters), Brown University
2013
Organization: Brown University
Result: Honor
Norman Mailer Prize (Distinguished Writing)
2013
Organization: Norman Mailer Center
Result: Winner

Awards & Nominations

Works

Major Works

Drown

1996 Short story collection 224 pages

A collection of stories about Dominican-born youths dealing with fatherlessness, poverty, and adapting to life in New Jersey; introduces recurring character(s) later used in Díaz's work.

immigrant experiencefamilypovertyidentity
Translations
  • Negocios (Spanish translation of Drown)

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

2007 Novel 339 pages

A multi-generational saga of a Dominican-American family told with footnotes and Spanglish; intertwines personal tragedy with Dominican history.

diasporafamily historytraumapower and oppression
Adaptations
  • [Film rights] The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

This Is How You Lose Her

2012 Short story collection 224 pages

A collection of stories about love, infidelity, and the weaknesses of masculinity; many stories center on the recurring character Yunior.

loveinfidelitymasculinityremorse

Islandborn

2018 Children's book 40 pages

A children's picture book about a girl recalling memories of her family's island homeland (the Dominican Republic); celebrates diversity and roots.

rootsmemorydiversity

Bibliography

  • Drown (1996)
  • The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007)
  • This Is How You Lose Her (2012)
  • Islandborn (2018)
  • Various short stories and essays (published in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, etc.)

Translations of Works

  • Negocios (Spanish translation of Drown)

Style & Themes

Literary Style
Use of Spanglish and code-switchingMeta techniques such as frequent footnotes and asidesConversational, rhythmic prose
Recurring Motifs
immigration and diasporafamily and intergenerational influencememory of trauma and violencefragility of masculinity

Legacy

Junot Díaz has shaped contemporary American literature by rendering the immigrant experience in a distinctive voice. Winner of major prizes including the Pulitzer and MacArthur fellowships, he became a leading figure among Latino writers; his career has also been marked by public controversies regarding allegations of abusive behavior in 2018.

Academic Societies

  • American Academy of Arts and Letters

Quotes

  • “I can safely say I've seen the US from the bottom up... I may be a success story as an individual. But if you adjust the knob and just take it back one setting to the family unit, I would say my family tells a much more complicated story.”
    Source: Interview (2010) (2010)
  • “My idea, ever since Drown, was to write six or seven books about him that would form one big novel.”
    Source: Remarks/interview (2012)

Trivia

  • Migrated from the Dominican Republic to New Jersey at age six (1974).
  • Created the recurring character Yunior while in college; Yunior appears across multiple works.
  • Won the Pulitzer Prize for The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2008).
  • Received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2012 (the 'Genius Grant').
  • Faced allegations of abusive behavior in 2018 that generated public controversy; MIT reported no evidence of wrongdoing after investigation.