INDIANAPOLIS — The entire community is invited as award-winning author Junot Díaz presents The Indianapolis Public Library’s 2017 McFadden Memorial Lecture on Thurs., March 2 at 7 p.m. at Central Library, 40 E. St. Clair St. Diaz will discuss his career as a writer and social activist during this presentation moderated by local journalist Raphael Sanchez and conduct a book signing following the program.
Díaz is best known for his short story collection, Drown (1996), and his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007), which also earned the National Book Critics Circle Award. His second short story collection, This Is How You Lose Her (2012), was a New York Times bestseller and National Book Award finalist. He is a recipient of a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship, PEN/Malamud Award, Dayton Literary Peace Prize, Guggenheim Fellowship, and PEN/O Henry Award. Díaz was selected as one of the 39 most important Latin American writers under the age of 39 by the Bogotá World Book Capital and the Hay Festival, and as one of the 20 top writers for the 21st century by The New Yorker magazine.
Díaz was born in the Dominican Republic and raised in New Jersey. He is currently the fiction editor at Boston Review and Nancy Allen Professor of Writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Díaz has been a critical voice on immigration policy in the United States and the deportation of Haitians and Haitian-Dominicans by the Dominican government. He is the co-founder of the Voices of Our Nation Workshop and honorary chairman of the DREAM project, a non-profit education involvement program in the Dominican Republic.
This free lecture is made possible by Friends of the Library through gifts to The Indianapolis Public Library Foundation. For more information, call 317-275-4099 or visit indypl.org.
