BiblioAddict

On Junot Diaz, the birth of a brief life, Spanish pronunciations, borrowing from books, unimportant but ubiquitous labels, and good ole’ fashioned trade paperbacks:

This week’s issue of Newsweek has a very interesting interview with Junot Diaz, author of “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.” Here’s Diaz on the inspiration for his book:

I was in Mexico City, and I was living there, really depressed, trying to figure out how to write something that made any sense, and one of my Mexican friends had picked up a copy of “The Importance of Being Earnest” off his bookshelf and he started talking about how important Oscar Wilde was in his life. And in Spanish it’s hard to pronounce “Wilde” without it coming out sounding like “Wao.” And I just loved that. I had this incredible vision of this whole family: this fat kid, can’t get laid, loves “Star Trek;” his super-athletic, burning-with-rage-towards-her-mother-but-incredibly-forward-looking sister, and then this really [messed]-up mom. They just jumped into my head.

And this is a book where you’re borrowing from so many books. It’s a book about other books. If it wasn’t for the small pleasures, the confidence that you draw from other writers, the courage that you find in other writers’ work, it would be hard to continue through these labors.

And here’s him on whether he gets “frustrated by always being identified as a ‘Dominican’ writer or a ‘Latino’ writer, and never just as a straight-up ‘writer’”:

No, because there’s no such thing as a straight-up writer. I think when people say a straight-up writer, what they really mean is a white writer. In other words, historically there has never been this concept of a nonracialized, nongendered writer. The fact that the word “writer” has to be modified so often is because everybody knows that when people speak of writers, we tend to mean, on an unconscious level, white males. And I don’t think that being a white writer and being a Dominican writer says anything about your talent with the material that you write about. That’s the important difference.

I haven’t read his book yet, but I intend to. Just as soon as it comes out in paperback. I know that sounds bad – as if I don’t think his book is worth the $20 hardback – but, in fact, I’ve immensely enjoyed every other thing by Diaz I’ve managed to lay my hands on. I anticipate liking Diaz’s book so much that I want it in my favorite book form: good ole’ trade paperback. Which is coming out some time soon I hope.