For anyone who has not read this book yet, you really ought to do yourself a favor and read it now. Diaz has crafted one of the most interesting and descriptive novels I have ever read, and I read an average of a book a week. This book is a one in a million masterpiece. While you're at it, you should also read his book of short stories published earier. Both books give a enlightening and empathetic glimpse of the lives of Dominicanos (as) in and out of the DR. Both are great reads.

Here's someone who will inspire the Dominican-American communty

he is showing the world that the dominican people can also think and just be a bunch of rum and beer drinkers of plain and simple not just basseball players.

for those that haven't read it here's a taste http://www.newyorker.com/archive/....000_12_25_098_TNY_LIBRY_000022398

Great book to read! Everyone should get a copy.

Dominican-American

0000

I only known them by "DOMINICAN- YORK"

I totally agree with the sentiments expressed by the other commentators. Junot's ...."Oscar Wao" is simply marvelous. However, I do want to recommend his other book - a collection of delightful and thoughtful short stories : "Drown".

Junto Diaz is a credit to the people of the Domincan Republic.

A New Yorker who adores the DR, Anastasios Sarikas

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/....NY_LIBRY_000022398?currentPage=5I Posted on the first day "...Don Quixote....of Dominican literature ....Brilliant" I was censored ...for what?...this link is to a 15 page excerpt in NEW YORKER....enjoy

Perception: Your "Dysfunctional" Haitian mentality is twisted, sickening, tirening and annoying against the proactive and forwards "Dominican" pride.

At least give me an example of anybody from your country that is well known worldwide for doing something postivie on behalf of your identity and proud.

Haitians are well know worlwide for being "mediocre" and that's it........

Ruby: Your "Dysfunctional" Dominican mentality is twisted, sickening, tirening and annoying against the proactive and forwards "Haitian" pride.

At least give me an example of anybody from your country that is well known worldwide for doing something postivie on behalf of your identity and proud.

Dominicans are well know worlwide for being "mediocre" and that's it........

I feel a little crazy right now, how about Ruby and Perception getting together and making some "music"? If you two can love as good as you can hate, you will be awesome! I think it is time you two stop dissing each other and consider loving each other. After all, the two of you together will reunite the island. Make love not hate! That's what i say.

Hey Rubi

Junot Diaz is a man of great accomplishment and a gifted wrter. And oh, by the way, so is his good friend from Haiti Edwidge Danticat who also won for best biography. Take a lesson.

http://www.bombsite.com/issues/101/articles/2948
http://www.latimes.com/features/books/la-bkw-bookcritics7mar07,0,2648242.story

rjb727, thank you for the bombsite.com article/interview. Great stuff, with tremendous insight into Diaz's writing process. It would be well worth anyone's time to read that piece.

One thing however, the other site got me only a "page not found" in the LA Times archives. Maybe it's a digit or two off or something??

Perceptio: Haitians are well know for what worldwide??????????


For being desttructive, living in ruins, wild and savage.....................nothing else


This is what bothers your feelings Right???

Give it a break Rubi, it's getting old.

rubi the famous Haitian bater strikes again ...he lives for the opportunity to kick the underdog

ruby: I hate to do this but you leave me no choice. Way, way before there was a Dominican Republic and a dominican, there were Haitians. Toussaint moved into the part of the island under Spanish control and freed, repeat, freed a lot of slaves (blacks) who were owned by the oligarchy and the Catholic church. So, you can probably say that a Hatian (Toussaint) was the first libertador of slaves in what would later become DR. Soooo, we are indebted to the Haitians. So, get with the program, and stop your racism.

remember the French imported slaves 20 to 1 over the Spaniards....obviously that was their problem for when the slaves learned to count that was the end of the France in Hispaniola ....and the beginning of the slave uprisings throughout the Caribbean....the European powers spent so much wealth and manpower trying to put the Haitian revolt down that they created the Haitian mentality of looking only inward and never towards Europe for direction this attitude due and rightfully so to mistrust of European powers....continues.....The R.D. on the other hand is always looking for immigrants from anywhere to balance the Haitian incursion and thus the multi cultural multi racial make up of its people

The only drawback to Diaz' novels is that the reader must be familiarized with spanglish and other types of ghetto slangs in order to enjoy them, which limits the number of his readers pretty badly.

Mr Lautaro, when Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) was alive and writing books, people criticized him for writing dialog in the words that real people used at the time. Before Clemens came along it was expected that writers use correct English, despite the characters involved (although Charles Dickens used similar techniques). I should hope readers have become somewhat more sophisticated since then. Mr. Diaz creates dialog the way it is spoken now. It shouldn’t take readers long to catch on to the terminology, if they don't already know it.

so true what you say about Mark Twain... I have discussed this book with European enthusiasts with no knowledge of Spanish...they also loved the book

I was thinking about the people on the island who doesn´t know one iota about English, mr. davidjule, due to the fact that it must be really hard to translate to spanish some of his books without some of the paragraphs in them losing their meaning. At least that´s the most common complain that some friends over here have about the translations of some of his books.

That may well be true. I do not know who would do (did do?) the translation, or how it would (did?)translate. It can be done, but you are correct that getting the exact meaning is exremely difficult. I have read some very good translations from Spanish to English, "One Hundred Years Of Solitude", for one, but I really don't know how it compared to the original, all I know is the translation was good. However, if anyone could find the perfect translator and translation, if would be this author. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

"The R.D. on the other hand is always looking for immigrants from anywhere to balance the Haitian incursion and thus the multi cultural multi racial make up of its people"

That's preposterous. The ethinic make-up of the current dominican population is a result of immigration that occured during the spanish colonial period as there has been no substantial immigration initiated by any dominican government that would've significantly altered the phenotype of the dominican population as a whole. Immigration to the dominican republic from so-called whites during the republican period can be considered a trickle at best.