Embassy Information
Embassy Event
JUNOT DIAZ AT THE BOOK FAIR
May 2-4, 2009
Invited by the U.S. Embassy, acclaimed writer Junot Díaz, winner of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for his novel “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao,” visited Buenos Aires to lecture at the Buenos Aires International Book Fair.
Junot Díaz, one of the most prestigious authors in US contemporary literature, talked on Saturday May 2 at the 35th International Book Fair of Buenos Aires. Mr. Díaz talked about the immigrant experience in the United States. More than 300 people attended the event. After his talk, Mr. Díaz signed books at Random House Mondadori’s booth.
Junot Díaz also met with a group of Argentine writers at “Eterna Cadencia” book store on May 3.
From Santo Domingo to New York: The American Immigrant Experience.
May 2 – 8:00 pm
Book Fair
Ocre Pavillion - Room Julio Cortázar
Junot Diaz
Junot Díaz was born in Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic. At the age of six he moved to New Jersey with his parents. He earned his Master of Fine Arts from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and he is currently the fiction editor for the Boston Review and teaches creative writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
His work has appeared in: The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Time Out, Glimmer Train, Story, African Voices, Best American Fiction `96 (ed. John Edgar Wideman); Best American Fiction `97 (ed. Annie Proulx); Best American Fiction `99 (ed. Amy Tan); Best American Fiction `00 (ed. E.L. Doctorow); and was included in the ‘20 Writers for the 21st Century’ issue of The New Yorker (June ‘99) and The O.Henry Prize Stories anthology, 2009. He received a Pushcart Prize XXII, for his story ‘Invierno” which was later also selected for The Pushcart Book of Short Stories, a compilation of the best fiction from the first 25 years of the Pushcart Prize.
Díaz edited The Beacon Best of 2001: Great Writing by Women and Men of All Colors and Cultures. He co-wrote the screenplay for Washington Heights directed by Alfredo de Villa.
Díaz’s story collection, Drown was published by Riverhead in `96 (pbk, July `97), it is in its 23rd printing and was sold in 15 countries. (The story collection was also published in Spanish in the US, by Vintage Español, under the title Negocios.)
His first novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (September 2007, Riverhead) won the Pulitzer Prize and remained on the New York Times and independent bookstore bestseller lists for months in hardback and paperback. It is in its 20th hardback printing and has been sold in 29 languages. Film rights have been optioned by Scott Rudin and Miramax.
