Junot Díaz is the author of Drown (1996), a collection of short stories, and of the novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007). Díaz was born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic on December 31, 1968. He has two brothers and two sisters. Growing up, Díaz and his siblings lived in Santo Domingo with their mother while Díaz’s father went to the United States to work. His father sent for his family when Díaz was seven. Their family lived in a poor part of New Jersey populated primarily by Dominicans.
Díaz reports that his grades in high school were awful. He did however spend a lot of time reading everything he could find in the library. He also wrote a Stephen King-esque novel that he says was “garbage.” Díaz worked various jobs before becoming a writer, including working at a steel mill and delivering pool tables.
Díaz reports that his grades in high school were awful. He did however spend a lot of time reading everything he could find in the library. He also wrote a Stephen King-esque novel that he says was “garbage.” Díaz worked various jobs before becoming a writer, including working at a steel mill and delivering pool tables.
Díaz attended Rutgers University and received his Bachelors degree in History and Literature. While at Rutgers, Díaz lived in Demarest, the dorm where Oscar and Yunior live in the novel. After going to Rutgers, Díaz pursued a Masters in Fine Arts in Creative Writing at Cornell. It was there that he began to write the short stories that eventually formed his first published collection called Drown (1996). Yunior, a young Dominican immigrant who will later narrate Díaz’s first novel, narrates the stories in the collection.
Drown (1996) received critical acclaim from many sources, and soon Díaz was more popular in the literary world than he ever imagined he would be. The book was also translated into Spanish and published under the title Negocios (1997). Díaz had a two-book deal and a six-figure advance, and life looked great. However, after his success, Díaz found it difficult to write. In fact, it was another eleven years before Díaz was able to complete another work of creative fiction. His second book, published in 2007, is a novel called The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. It is the story of a ghetto nerd and the curse that has plagued his family for generations. The novel received as much, or more, critical acclaim than Drown and won numerous awards.
Díaz is known for his spare narrative style, and his seamless integration of Spanish into his English text. Both Drown and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao explore the violence history of the Dominican Republic, and the violence that occurs on an everyday basis in the lives of the characters.
In the wake of the novel, Díaz has been the recipient of many awards and fellowships, including a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Pulitzer Prize. Díaz is a professor of Creative Writing at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and lives in Boston.
