Get to know 'genius' author Junot Diaz | The Mash

Dominican MIT professor Junot Diaz, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his novel ?The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao,? attends a ceremony in Santo Domingo in 2008. PHOTO/GETTY IMAGES FILE PHOTO

The Mash

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Junot Diaz added another prestigious accolade to his resume this week?he was named one of 23 fellows awarded a $500,000 MacArthur Foundation ?genius grant.? The award fellowship, paid out over a period of five years, is for individuals who have shown exceptional creativity in their field and allows the recipients to follow a creative vision, with no strings attached, to advance their work.

Diaz, who immigrated to the United States from The Dominican Republic as a youth, has written three books and teaches creative writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. On his only visit to Chicago on a 30-city tour to promote his newest novel, ?This is How You Lose Her,? he gave The Mash some face time to talk about his teenage years, being a nerd and more.

Interview by Marisa Spiegel, Walter Payton

What was the first thing that you ever wrote that you were proud of?
Junot Diaz: Wow. That?s a wonderful question because I wrote a bunch of stuff that I?m not very proud of?which was kind of necessary. It was the first story in my first book?a story called ?Ysrael.? And I remember when I finished it, I was in grad school, I was about 24, and I remember finishing it and I remember thinking ?OK, this is not a bad start.?

From your adolescent years, do you have an outstanding memory? A favorite one?
Junot Diaz: I recall being somewhere around 13 or 14 and there was a young woman in our neighborhood, and again, we didn?t have many people who went to college in my neighborhood at all, and there was this young gal, she was probably 18 or 19, and she was an undergraduate at Douglas College ? she was this beautiful, super smart, super progressive, super politically active gal and I?ll never forget how she would always take time to come down and to yell at us young knuckleheads, tell us ?go to college, you?ve got to be active, you got to know the news?what?s going on.? And we were just these dumb around-the-way kids, all we were thinking about was how we could make money, but this girl was trying to get us (to be) socially conscious. ? And, in fact, I always think the only reason I went to college was because of her in many ways.

You often describe yourself as a nerd. So, what in the world, going on right now, are you nerding out about the most?
Junot Diaz: Well, I?m kind of nutty in the sense that I?m kind of always reading. So listen, everyone?s got their nerd?some people are into music, some people are into clothes, you know, some people are into whatever. Me? I?m into books. ? Yeah, I love comic books to death. And I love this comic book by Image called ?Prophet.? If you?ve never read it, it?s like, amazing. There?s this big comic book, it?s done, you don?t have to follow every issue and I think it?s one of the best comic books that?s been out for years. It?s called ?King City? about an assassin who uses a cat to kill people. It?s just absolute dynamite.

And then, of course, music. Everybody loves music, especially you young people. But there?s this young MC, he?s, like, (an) openly out, queer MC and his name is Le1f?L-E-1-F?he?s got this jam called ?Wut? and it?s on, like, Youtube, you could download his mixtape called ?Dark York? and it?s probably the illest, illest thing I?ve ever heard. ? I grew up in hip-hop, which was, like ? anti-gay, rabidly homophobic and it?s amazing to see a young guy like this doing his thing. And it?s really, really important for hip-hop and for the rest of us.

You?re often called ?fearless.? So then, when you write, are you thinking?are you determined to step over the societal boundaries or do feel like you just write what you want and society takes that as it is?
Junot Diaz: If you, like, consciously think about being cool, you?re not cool. If you consciously think about being, like, different or original, you ain?t different or original. The people who are, like, original, the people who are individuals, they can?t help themselves and they?re not thinking about it and they?re usually punished for it. Yeah? So it?s the same thing, like, I got to tell you if I was conscious of trying to, like, impress people with my writing, my writing would be booty. ? If my writing has any use to anyone, if anyone enjoys it, it?s simply because I?m just (a) Jersey, Dominican, immigrant, nerd of African decent who sits around the house and writes stuff that he thinks nobody?s going to want to read. ? And I?m always kind of stunned that anybody reads anything I do. I mean I?m an artist, by nature no one considers what I do and no one knows who the heck I am, but that anybody does it is astonishing.

What was your favorite book, besides Lord of the Rings in high school.
Junot Diaz: That?s easy, I mean, I love ?The Autobiography of Malcolm X.? That was like the only black book we read in high school. ? Um, again, nerdy, nerdy ?A Wrinkle in Time??Madeleine L?Engle, that was awesome. The Enemy. Again, if you haven?t read this book, the Voldemort of this book is The Enemy. I kind of adored that book to death. ? There was another kind of a fantasy book that was ? Ursula K. Le Guin?s ? ?The Wizard of Earthsea??like before Harry Potter there was The Wizard of Earthsea.

What are you reading right now, as we speak?
Junot Diaz: I am reading a book about the Japanese immigrant community, an absolutely wonderful novel?this is the second time I?ve read it. It?s called The Buddha in the Attic and it?s by Julie Otsuka ? It?s a book I kind of think is kind of awesome. And I?m [reading again] a big, kind of nerdy theory book on zombies. So, that?s how I roll. Get me some of the undead.

>> Want to see more from our interview with Junot Diaz? Click here to see a video clip from us talking to him about the DREAM Act, immigration and immigrants in America.

Source: http://themash.com/blog/entertainment/2012/10/04/macarthur-genius-author-junot-diaz/

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