On Wednesday, Sept. 24, Syracuse University will host former SU professor and
Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Junot Diaz for the Latino Heritage Month
commemorative lecture. The lecture will take place at 7 p.m. in the Joyce Hergenhan
Auditorium in Newhouse 3. A book signing will follow.
Author of "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" (Riverhead Hardcover, 2007),
Diaz is a Dominican-American writer whose work focuses on the duality of the
immigrant experience.
Diaz's short fiction has appeared in The New Yorker -- which listed him as one of the
top 20 writers of the 21st century -- as well as in Story, The Paris Review and the
anthologies The Best American Short Stories (1996, 1997, 1999 and 2000) and African
Voices. His short story collection "Drown" (Riverhead Hardcover, 1996) and novel
"The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" have earned critical acclaim.
Accolades for "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" include the John Sargent Sr.
First Novel Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Anisfield-Wolf Book
Award, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and the 2008 Pulitzer Prize.
He is currently the fiction editor at the Boston Review and the Nancy Allen Professor
of Writing and Humanistic Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Diaz's lecture is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Josie
Otero at (315) 443-9676.
