Junot Díaz

Junot Díaz is the rare writer whose credentials, the Guggenheim, the MacArthur, the MIT professorship, almost get in the way of the real point. Born in Santo Domingo and raised in New Jersey from age six, he writes the immigrant condition from the inside, with a voice that switches registers and refuses to soften the hard parts. What I admire is not the prizes but the nerve: he grabs you by the collar and makes the in-between of two languages and two countries feel viscerally true. Writers who can do that are scarce, and I expect his work to outlast the trophies.

Name (English)

Junot Díaz

Name (Japanese)

ジュノ・ディアズ

Reading

じゅの・でぃあず

Born

December 31, 1968 (age 57)

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Capricorn / Monkey

Origin

Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

Occupation

writer / university teacher / science fiction writer / novelist

High school

Old Bridge High School

University

Cornell University

Awards & achievements

• 1999 Guggenheim Fellowship
• 2012 MacArthur Fellows Program
• Rome Prize
• 2002 PEN/Malamud Award
• 2008 Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards
• 2009 O. Henry Award
• 2019 Américas Award
• 1998 Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts at MIT

• Official sitehttps://www.junotdiaz.com/
• Xhttps://x.com/junotdiaz
• Wikipedia (English)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junot%20D%C3%ADaz
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%B8%E3%83%A5%E3%83%8E%E3%83%BB%E3%83%87%E3%82%A3%E3%82%A2%E3%82%BA
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q402664

Tags

• writer
• university teacher
• science fiction writer

Last updated

2026-06-21

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.