Why He's No. 51

Junot Diaz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author. He's best known for having penned The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

Back Stage

Junot Díaz’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, Díaz lives in New York City and is a professor of creative writing at MIT. Can Oscar overcome the curse and find love? Well, you'll just have to buy the book and find out for yourselves. That the book took a decade to appear is of no consequence - although we can only contemplate what we might have missed had Mr. Diaz been a little more prolific. Those professional critics, those whose reputations depend on telling it how it is, certainly believe the book is an 'event in it's own right and possibly the ten years heightened anticipation. It has now won two of the most prestigious literary awards in the western world, the 2008 Pulitizer Prize for Fiction and the 2007 National Book Critics Circle Award. It also won the notoriously challenging Tournament of Books run by the booksellers, Powells, high praise indeed. No doubt more awards will come; in fact I will go out on a limb and pick it as a shortlisted candidate for the heavy weight IMPAC Dublin International Literary Prize.

Forcaste

Junot Diaz graduated from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey in 1992 with a degree in English Literature. He earned his Masters of Fine Arts Degree from Cornell University in 1995.He was awarded the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for his fictional novel entitled "The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" in April 2008.