DANR Congratulates Junot Diaz on his selection to receive prestigious Pulitzer Prize

The Dominican American National Roundtable congratulates Junot Diaz for his selection as the recipient of a 2008 Pulitzer Prize in the Letters, Drama and Music Category for his fictional work “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.” The Pulitzer Prize is the highest national honor in print journalism, literary achievements and musical composition. Prizes are awarded yearly and each winner receives a certificate and $10,000.

Junot is the first Dominican, and only the second latino ever to receive this honor. Before him, Oscar Hijuelos, a Cuban American won the Pulitzer in 1990 with the novel “The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love.”

Diaz was born in Villa Juana, a barrio in Domingo, Dominican Republic, and raised there and in New Jersey. He is a graduate of Rutgers University and received an MFA from Cornell University. He lives in New York City and Boston, and is a tenured professor at MIT.

For more information on the pulitzer prize visit http://www.pulitzer.org/