Book Prize preview: Junot Díaz

"The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao," up for the L.A. Times Book Prize for fiction (it just won the Pulitzer), took author Junot Díaz 10 years to complete. In October, La Bloga asked Díaz how it felt to have completed the novel about a "ghetto nerd" who loves sci-fi and fantasy. "That S.O.B. almost broke me," he said of "Wao." Still, he added, "books are not people. They are never late to the party. It doesn't make any difference, early or late, as long as you get it done."

LAist has just posted a new interview with Díaz, in which the Dominican-born, New Jersey-raised author speaks passionately (and profanely) about culture, opportunity, language and writing. Here's a sample:

LAist: You speak very highly of your experiences in college, at Rutgers University.

Díaz: You're a poor f***** kid from Dominican New Jersey, from a neighborhood you never left, I mean I certainly never met a girl who liked to read. Never met an activist, you know? Going to college was like immigrating again except it wasn't as f***** up, it was actually kind of fun. I mean, it wasn't f***** paradise, I mean, I worked my way through college, delivering f***** pool tables. I mean, I know kids who say they worked their way through college and they had a f***** work study job at the library, you know? I was f***** working my ass off, so it wasn't a fun ass joke, but compared to what immigration was like when I was a kid? I was like, shit yeah, this is great! You get ass, people invite you to smoke weed, you meet people from all over the world, you read books you can't believe ever could have been written. You get with activists, you get to travel, you know.

Nothing startles me on a daily basis more than what we’re all capable of, and how things can work out if we’re just given a little bit of support – all these institutions that are supposed to be nurturing young people, and this country that’s supposed to be all youth-positive, there is just no support for young people. It takes so little to catapult someone into another universe, but they don’t even want to give you that.

Carolyn Kellogg

Photo of Mona Simpson and Díaz in conversation at the Hammer Museum/Osmany Rodriguez for LAist

,

Comments

[John Quintana]

I read the link to La Bloga. How cool that their writer Gregg Barrios predicted that the book would win the Pulitzer way back in October.

Why isn't he working at the Times?