April 10, 2008,
Junot Díaz’s New World
By Gregory Cowles
What did Junot Díaz do when his first novel, “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao,” won the Pulitzer this week? I asked him, via e-mail, and this is what he said:
As soon as I heard I took a walk to the Hackensack River in Jersey and looked out over the chop. I asked a local mechanic (in Spanish) where I could find a bar and then I thought better of it and went home to celebrate with my mother and my sister and my little nephew. The phone was already ringing. In Santo Domingo we don’t normally get news like this so it traveled fast. I picked up the phone. A new world.
This posting is from one of my favourite blogs, out of New York, Paper Cuts. Do have a look.
By Gregory Cowles
What did Junot Díaz do when his first novel, “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao,” won the Pulitzer this week? I asked him, via e-mail, and this is what he said:
As soon as I heard I took a walk to the Hackensack River in Jersey and looked out over the chop. I asked a local mechanic (in Spanish) where I could find a bar and then I thought better of it and went home to celebrate with my mother and my sister and my little nephew. The phone was already ringing. In Santo Domingo we don’t normally get news like this so it traveled fast. I picked up the phone. A new world.
This posting is from one of my favourite blogs, out of New York, Paper Cuts. Do have a look.
And how clever of the organisers of the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival to have asked Junot Diaz to be their guest long before he won the Pulitzer Prize. His attendance, along with Man Booker Prize winner Ann Enright, is a real coup for the Festival.
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