<p><span class="head3"><a name="junotdiaz">Pulitzer-Prize Winning Author Junot Díaz to Give Reading on Campus</a></span><br><img height="233" src="http://www.pomona.edu/Events/News/Images/oscarwao.jpg" width="175" align="right" border="1">Junot D<font face="Arial">í</font>az, author of the widely acclaimed novel <i>The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao</i>, will give a reading on November 5 at 5:30 p.m. in the Rose Hills Theater in the Smith Campus Center. D<font face="Arial">í</font>az received the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for his work, a lively novel that mixes English, Spanish and Spanglish to tell the story of Oscar, a 300-pound geek who wants to be the next Tolkien, and his Dominican-American family who suffer from a multi-generational curse. <br>
<br>D<font face="Arial">í</font>az has won several awards for his novel—his second book after a collection of short stories titled <i>Drown</i> (1996)—including the Pulitzer, 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. <i>The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao</i> was also declared the best novel of 2007 by <i>Time</i> and <i>New York Magazine</i>. <br>
<br><i>Entertainment Weekly</i> called the book ""Terrific. . . . Narrated in high-energy Spanglish, the book is packed with wide-ranging cultural references--to <i>Dune</i>, Julia Alvarez, <i>The Sound of Music</i>--as well as erudite and hilarious footnotes on Caribbean history. It is a joy to read, and every bit as exhilarating to reread." <br>
<br>D<font face="Arial">í</font>az is the fiction editor at the <i>Boston Review</i> and Nancy Allen professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. <br><br>The reading will be preceded by the Latin American Studies Fall Reception at the Smith Campus Plaza at 4:15 p.m. Book purchases and book signings will be available after the reading as time permits. </p>