Junot Díaz

Junot Díaz was born on December 31, 1968, in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, and migrated with his family to New Jersey in December 1974. He earned a BA in English from Rutgers University in 1992 and an MFA from Cornell University in 1995. A creative writing professor at MIT, he is the first major Dominican-American novelist to win the Pulitzer Prize. His career began with the acclaimed 1995 short story collection Drown, introducing his recurring narrator Yunior, a quasi-autobiographical character reflecting immigrant struggles. He gained international prominence with The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007), which won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and a MacArthur 'Genius' Fellowship. Other works include the story collection This Is How You Lose Her (2012) and the children's book Islandborn (2018). His fiction explores Latino immigrant experiences, Dominican history, and the legacies of power and violence.