Writer Diaz to Read at Williams
WILLIAMSTOWN - Award-winning Dominican-American writer Junot Diaz will discuss and read from his work on Wednesday, March 12, at 8 p.m. in Brooks-Rogers Recital Hall at Williams College.His fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, which has called him one of the 20 top writers for the 21st century. He has also been published in Story, The Paris Review and in the anthologies "Best American Short Stories" and "African Voices." His short story collection, "Drown" (1996) and the novel "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" (2007) have been published to critical acclaim. Miramax has bought the rights for a film adaptation of the novel, which was awarded the 2007 John Sargent Sr. First Novel Prize and was selected by Time and New York Magazine as the best novel of 2007. The book was recently short-listed for a National Book Critics Circle award.
Central to Diaz's work is the duality of the immigrant experience. He is active in the Dominican community, teaches creative writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and is the fiction editor for the Boston Review. He is a founding member of the Voices of Writing Workshop, which focused on writers of color.
Born in Villa Juana, a barrio in Santo Domingo, Daz moved to the U.S. with his parents when he was 6, settling in New Jersey. He received his bachelor's degree from Rutgers College in 1992 and his master of fine arts from Cornell University in 1995.
