Pulitzer gets it right

Nice to see that they got it right and gave Junot Díaz one for his book the “Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.” I loved his first book "Drown" so much I've been scared to start the new one even though I've got a copy Díaz himself signed shortly after it came out. Reminder to self - READ MORE

Here's a really recent interview from which comes this lovely quote -

"I don’t feel that my organic unit is ‘the writer.’ I feel my organic unit is poor immigrant kids who want to do something to make themselves feel valuable. Maybe writing is a part of it, you want to feel valuable and fuckin productive. The hardest thing in the world is to maintain any sense of hope in a country that doesn’t give a fuck about you."

and another interview with more juicy quotes

"Someone said this to me and I love it: 'Being a hot young short-story writer is like being a hot young up-and-coming pastry chef.'"

"I tell a lot of young people I work with that nothing should be more inspirational than my dumb ass. It took me 11 years to struggle through one dumb book, and every day you just want to give up. But you don't find out you're an artist because you do something really well. You find out you're an artist because when you fail you have something within you—strength or belief or just craziness—that picks you back up again."

"You know, I love that image from "Moby Dick," because we're like the ship. We're the Pequod. We're this nation on this ship, and we're on this insane quest being directed by a madman. But what's really interesting is that Captain Ahab wasn't taking his foreign workers and making them walk the plank. He understood the value of diversity through his dream. We're even crazier than Ahab. We're chasing this white whale called terrorism, but our captain is saying, "You know what, I don't think some of us really belong here. They should walk the plank." I never thought there would be a day where the United States would be crazier than its metaphor, the Pequod. But we're there. We're there. Ahab is now a moderate."