Junot Díaz Named Dominican Cultural Ambassador to the World

The Dominican Chamber of Deputies approved a Resolution delegating award-winning, US-based writer Junot Díaz the “Cultural Ambassador of the Dominican Republic to the World.” The special appointment, initially brought before the Congress on April 22, was carried out at a solemn ceremony in the Lower House of Dignitaries Hall.

The influential New York Times has called him the “young master of short the story,” reaffirming him “as one of the most irresistible voices of contemporary fiction.”

Present at the ceremony, presided over by Chamber President Julio Cesar Valentín Jiminián, included the Lawmakers Administration of the Institution; Spokespeople for accredited political parties and members of the Permanent Commission of Culture. In addition, there were large groups of legislators, writers, artists, intellectuals and special invited guests. The decision to appoint the Pulitzer Prize winner as Cultural Ambassador to the World emanated from the Congress in the form of a resolution proposed by Deputy Modesto Díaz Coste, PRD member from the Province of Monseñor Nouel.

Junot Díaz is a Dominican writer who, from the age of 7 when he left the DR with his family, was raised in New Jersey. At a young age he began to develop an intensely creative career in literature, achieving his greatest expression within the genre of contemporary narration. His style has revolutionized the ways and uses of language in the construction of the short story and novel.

The young author, whose particular narrative style, has earned the attention and respect of intellectuals and readers around the world, also teaches creative writing at Syracuse University and is the fiction editor of the Boston Review. In his book, Drown (Ahogado), which won him great international acclaim, he uses a language full of words that run linguistically between Spanish and English creating a provocative fictional structure based on the drama of the Hispanic immigrant community in the United States.

“This country is fed by the silence of the immigrants in order to maintain its idyllic image,” Junot Díaz has said. The influential New York Times has called him the “young master of short the story,” reaffirming him “as one of the most irresistible voices of contemporary fiction.”

Having reached the level of Best Seller on the most demanding of book lists with Drown, Junot Díaz recently made an enormous impact on the world of readers with his recent novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (La prodigiosa vida breve de Oscar Wao). The novel, like much of his work, is centered on the critical view and ideology surrounding the drama and lives of the Latin American immigrant community. The duality of the immigrant experience is central to Díaz’s work.

“you’re not a real novelist until you’ve fallen into the deepest hole of your horrible life and, from there, you write.”

In addition to being awarded the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for fiction, Díaz, has received the “Pushcart Prize XXII” (1997), the “Eugene McDermott Award” (1998) and a “Guggenheim Fellowship” award (1999). The author, whose work is full of energy, humanistic, social and conceptual provocation has said, when referring to human nature in his work, that “you’re not a real novelist until you’ve fallen into the deepest hole of your horrible life and, from there, you write.”

Chamber President Julio Cesar Valentín Jiminián described Junot Díaz as “a faithful demonstration of the deep admiration and pride the Dominican people feel for the achievements of one of its own children in the field of literature and that, despite his absence from our land, he continues to conserve the most authentic values or our identity, those which he expresses in his creative literary work.”

Not only has Díaz been revered by this honor bestowed upon him by the Dominican Congress, he has also been recognized by the Minister of Culture at the 11th International Book Fair of Santo Domingo 2008.

Julio César Valentín, Chamber of Deputies President, hands a certificate to Junot Díaz officially declaring him to be the Dominican Cultural Ambassador to the World. Modesto Díaz accompanies them.