Junot Díaz

Pulitzer Prize-winner Junot Díaz was born in Villa Juana, a neighborhood in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic in 1968. He emigrated to the United States in 1974—to be re-united with his father in Parlin, New Jersey. The duality of the immigrant experience remains central to his work.

Best known for his short story collection Drown and the novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which received the Pulitzer Prize in 2008, Junot Díaz dazzles with a body language that floats upon the page until it's our turn to talk with ghosts.

"Rushdie claims that tyrants and scribblers are natural antagonists, but I think that's too simple—it lets writers off pretty easy. Dictators, in my opinion, just know competition when they see it-same with writers."

As an active member of community organizations from Pro-Libertad to the Dominican Workers Party and the Unión de Jóvenes Dominicanos, Díaz has defended the legal entitlements of immigrants.

His work includes: How to Date a Brown Girl (1995), Drown (1996), This is How You Lose Her (2012), or children's book Islandborn (2018).

Junot Díaz lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.