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New York.– Pulitzer Prize “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao,” the first novel by Dominican-born, New Jersey-reared writer Junot Díaz, has been named top literature event of the year by The Miami Herald newspaper.

The touching work explores the Dominican diaspora. Díaz is only the second Latino to win U.S. literature’s top prize.

According to the paper, the other events were:

2. Miami Book Fair International celebrates 25th anniversary. As book fairs dwindle around the country, the one in our back yard still thrives. Who says Miamians don't read?

3. Peter Matthiessen winsNational Book Award. With Shadow Country, a rewrite of his set-in-Florida Mister Watson trilogy, he proved the value of editing.

4. Barack Obama's memoirs dominate the bestseller lists. A leader who can write with real literary and philosophical merit? Yes, he can.

5. Twilight mania: Stephenie Meyer publishes Breaking Dawn, the final installment of her quartet, and shows that young love and vampires can lure teens –and their moms– back into the bookstores.

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COMMENTS
8 comment(s)
Written by: jacirez This user is banned, 22 Dec 2008 1:05 PM
From: Iran, Zähedän
Congrats Junot...Next up is the Nobel Prize, Compadre!!!
Written by: Manhattanite, 22 Dec 2008 1:38 PM
From: United States
Congrats once again Junot! Congrats also to the Miami book fair noted as going 25 years. There is a Dominican book fair in NYC I attended a couple of years back which just had it's third outing, so still a long cry to a quarter century. This year they failed to advertise and I missed it ...damn shame, but on the other had I walk away from these things having spent way too much so perhaps it was for the best.
Written by: devin11, 22 Dec 2008 7:58 PM
From: United States, The Greatest City
Manhattanite,
You were not kidding about being disappointed, at the time of this post, there are just two comments. The Manny Ramirez article above this one has already received over 25 and counting.
Written by: Lautaro, 22 Dec 2008 8:10 PM
From: Dominican Republic, Santo Domingo
I didn't like the book, it was just to damn depressing. If one is looking to depress oneself, one only needs to look to the current socioeconomic landscape of the country, or read one of Shakespeare's tragedies if one is of the bookish type.
Written by: devin11, 22 Dec 2008 8:27 PM
From: United States, The Greatest City
I also read the book and agree that it was depressing but it was very well written and deserving of the accolades the author received, as was his first offering, Drown. Remember these are only fictional literary tragedies, so you can temper your depression, the current socio-economic situation is a non-fictional work in progress.
Written by: guillermone, 8 Jan 2009 4:12 PM
From: United States
As it was expected, Junot Diaz naturally came to Miami for the one week Miami International Book Fair. But what I particularly noticed and was somewhat surprised, that not one Latino TV station in Miami interviewed him. In addition to telemundo and univision, Miami has aproximately 5 other Spanish language TV channels and not one made mentioned of his presence in spite of a feature article about him on the Sunday Miami Herald. Ironically, interviews were given instead to a few up and coming lessor known Latin American writers, a far cry from the Pulitzer prize winner Junot Diaz.
Written by: Manhattanite, 8 Jan 2009 5:11 PM
From: United States
Interesting info guillermone. I'm glad they at least featured some writers instead of none. It isn't difficult to pick up from around the press and 'net that Diaz does not bite his tongue about much ... perhaps he offended or snubbed an organizer :P
Written by: guillermone, 8 Jan 2009 5:46 PM
From: United States
Manhattanite, What you say is very possible. The Miami media is dominated and controlled by Cuban exiles and they love people who kiss their butts, but are adverse to anyone that may have even the slightest bit of sympathy towards castro and his regime. What little I know about Junot is that he is a liberal, non-conformist very unlikely he would fit in with a Republican conservative Cuban exile community. Miami happens to have a very talented and locally prominent Dominican TV journalist Oscar Haza brother of DR soprano singer Ivonne Haza and Mr Haza is the biggest Cuban ass kisser you could meet and of course they love him here. Cubans have adopted him as if he were a modern day Maximo Gomez. Of course, he also never made mention of his compatriot pulitzer wirter Junot Diaz.
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