U. hosts newest Pulitzer novelist

Junot Diaz, who won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction on Monday for his first novel, “The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao,” stressed the importance of science fiction in conveying historical and social truths before a full house in McCormick 101 yesterday.

Diaz, who was born in the Dominican Republic and spent some of his childhood there before moving to New Jersey, acknowledged that he and the novel’s protagonist have similar life stories.

The protagonist of “Oscar Wao” is a Dominican-American boy who grows into a lonely, science fiction-loving nerd. His family’s story, however, also underscores issues of historical memory and cultural identity.

Diaz explained that people with a childhood as fragmented as his “encounter limits of realistic narrative in describing [their] condition.”

His first novel eschewed more conventional narrative strategies in favor of science fiction and fantasy elements because they can better illuminate certain “bizarre” or “horrible” stories, Diaz explained.

His preoccupation with “Tolkein’s concept of the secondary world” was crucial to his development as a writer by beguiling him “as a child of immigration” and reminding him “of enormous historical silences,” he added.

Diaz said that writers of historical fiction, just like fantasy writers, create worlds made of metaphors, “exactly as disconnected from us as Middle Earth, in some ways.”

Though the medley of science fiction, fantasy and folkloric elements can result in a fragmented work, readers are forced to develop their own answers to the questions the novel raises, Diaz explained.  

He likened this heightened participation to role-playing games, his protagonist’s favorite pastime, adding that the novel also resembles the shape-shifting baka monster of Dominican mythology, in that readers must hone their “powers of discernment” to get at its core.

Diaz admitted that he and the main character share not only an immigrant past but also a nerd identity. His own fascination with science fiction and fantasy began in childhood when he imagined his dysfunctional family as a non-superhero version of the Fantastic Four, he said.

When Diaz published his debut collection of short stories, “Drown,” in 1997, he rose to prominence as a noted literary spokeman for Dominican Americans.

Diaz was adamant about the importance of the Caribbean in U.S. identity.

“You can’t say ‘the United States’ without the silence in between the words evoking the Dominican Republic,” he said. “Santo Domingo is the place where the new world began.”

When asked whether he felt pressure from publishers to churn out another bestseller that appeals to Dominican audiences, Diaz noted he was not committed to serving any particular audience.

“It’s far too easy to imagine this sort of mono-collective called the audience,” he said. “It just seems like a real copout especially for us writers of color to rob our audiences of their individuality.”

A question from an audience member about a possible third book prompted Diaz to reflect upon the laboriousness of the writing process.