Junot Díaz Biography

Drown About the Author

Remarkably, Junot Diaz is only the second Dominican-American to have published a book of fiction in English (Julia Alvarez was the first). He is primarily a writer of poetry and prose fiction but his work is largely autobiographical.

One of five children, Diaz was born in 1969 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Knowing no English, he moved with his family to New Jersey at age seven. He began writing at about thirteen in an effort to escape the pain of his parents' failing marriage, his family's poverty, and his older brother's newly diagnosed leukemia. He later graduated from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, where his professors praised his talent for writing poetry and prose and encouraged him to pursue a literary career. Toward this end, he went on to complete a master of fine arts degree at Cornell University.

Before gaining success as a...
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