{"id":1023,"date":"2009-12-31T11:37:00","date_gmt":"2009-12-31T19:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/2009\/12\/happy-birthday-junot-diaz-and-happy-new-year-to-you.html"},"modified":"2009-12-31T11:37:00","modified_gmt":"2009-12-31T19:37:00","slug":"happy-birthday-junot-diaz-and-happy-new-year-to-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/2009\/12\/happy-birthday-junot-diaz-and-happy-new-year-to-you.html","title":{"rendered":"Happy Birthday Junot Diaz (and Happy New Year to You)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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TODAY is, by most accounts, the end of a decade — and a mostly bad one at that. But it gives us here at the Misread City some pleasure to nod to a writer of the oughts who we’re hoping will be an even bigger figure in the 2010s. Today is the 41st birthday of Junot Diaz<\/a>, author of the story collection “Drown” and the Pulitzer winning novel “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.”<\/p>\n

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I spoke to Diaz here<\/a> about his love of science-fiction — like me, a passion he chased for several years as a kid but gave up when adolescence hit hard. Writing “Oscar Wao” — about a “ghetto nerd” who aimed to become “the Dominican Tolkien” — brought Diaz back to sf in his mid-30s. (Why I returned at about the same time I can’t quiet explain, but I think fewer people are asking.)<\/p>\n

In any case, the novel is kickass and manages to wrap humor, a coming-of-age story, and critique of immigrant culture into an international history lesson like nothing I’ve seen.<\/p>\n

I also wrote about Diaz in a Sunday essay<\/a> about cultural hierarchy — the division between what’s long been considered high and lowbrow art, literature, music, etc., and why those categories seem to be breaking down. (It’s a long piece, but \u00a0one of the best read things I’ve written, for what that’s worth.)<\/p>\n

Wishing the novelist Junot Diaz — who also had the good sense to teach in ’09 at my alma mater<\/a> — a good 41st.<\/p>\n

And to readers of The Misread City, thank YOU for your interest and attention, and a Happy New Year to All.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TODAY is, by most accounts, the end of a decade — and a mostly bad one at that. But it gives us here at the Misread City some pleasure to nod to a writer of the oughts who we’re hoping will be an even bigger figure in the 2010s. Today is the 41st birthday of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[35,337,115,137,313],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1023","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-books","7":"category-junot-diaz","8":"category-ought-nostalgia","9":"category-science-fiction","10":"category-wesleyan","11":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1023\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}