Junot Díaz is the author of Drown (1996), a collection of short stories, and of the novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007). Díaz was born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic in 1968. He has two brothers and two sisters. Growing up, Díaz and his siblings lived in Santo Domingo with their mother while Díaz’s father went to the United States to work. His father sent for his family when Díaz was seven. Their family lived in a poor part of New Jersey populated primarily by Dominicans.
Díaz reports that his grades in high school were awful. He did, however, spend a lot of time reading everything he could find in the library. He also wrote a Stephen King-esque novel that he says was...
