Junot Díaz is finalist for the National Book Award
Excerpt from The National Book Foundation
"On a beach in the Dominican Republic, a doomed relationship flounders. In the heat of a hospital laundry room in New Jersey, a woman does her lover’s washing and thinks about his wife. In Boston, a man buys his love child, his only son, a first baseball bat and glove. At the heart of these stories is the irrepressible, irresistible Yunior, a young hardhead whose longing for love is equaled only by his recklessness―and by the extraordinary women he loves and loses: artistic Alma; the aging Miss Lora; Magdalena, who thinks all Dominican men are cheaters; and the love of his life, whose heartbreak ultimately becomes his own."
The National Book Awards winners will be announced on November 14, 2012 at the National Book Awards Ceremony, Cipriani Wall Street, New York City. For more information on all the finalists and the National Book Foundation, visit:
National Book Foundation
Presenter of the National Book Awards
This is How You Lose Her
by Junot Díaz
Riverhead Books, 2012
About Junot Díaz
Junot Díaz is an author and a Professor of Writing at MIT. His fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and The Best American Short Stories. His first novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, was greeted with rapturous reviews, including Michiko Kakutani in The New York Times calling it “a book that decisively establishes him as one of contemporary fiction's most distinctive and irresistible new voices.” His debut story collection, Drown, published eleven years prior to Oscar Wao, was also met with acclaim; it became a national bestseller, won numerous awards, and has since grown into a landmark of contemporary literature. Born in the Dominican Republic and raised in New Jersey, Díaz lives in New York City and in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Suggested Links
MIT SHASS | Comparative Media Studies | Writing
MIT News | Q&A: Junot Diaz on his new book, This Is How You Lose Her
SHASS News | Video: Junot Diaz Presentation at MIT, October 2012
MIT News | Diaz wins 2012 MacArthur "genius" grant
MIT News | Junot Diaz wins 2008 Pulitzer Prize
Video: 2012 MacArthur interview with Junot Diaz
Author's Website: www.junotdiaz.com
2012 Interview in the New York Times
MacArthur Fellowships | Class of 2012
Audio | NPR interview with Junot Diaz
Video | Junot Diaz on His New Story Collection
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