Readers' Review: "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" By Junot Diaz
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2013-01-30/readers-review-brief-wondrous-life-oscar-wao-junot-diaz
Junot Diaz’s first novel, “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao,” established him as one the most important voices in contemporary fiction. A New York Times review described his style as “Mario Vargas Llosa meets Star Trek meets David Foster Wallace meets Kanye West.” It’s the story of Oscar, a second-generation American obsessed with science fiction and finding love. Diaz takes us from Oscar’s home in New Jersey to his ancestral home in the Dominican Republic. Along the way, Oscar learns of the “curse” that haunted his family in the “old world," and may still be in the U.S. For this month’s Readers’ Review, Diane and her guests discuss the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel.
Guests
Dinaw Mengestu
author of "How to Read the Air" and "The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears". Mengestu is a 2012 MacArthur "genius" grant recipient.
Lisa Page
former president of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation. She teaches writing at George Washington University.
Silvio Torres-Saillant
professor of English at Syracuse University. Torres-Saillant formerly headed the Latino-Latin American Studies Program at Syracuse. He founded the CUNY Dominican Studies Institute, an interdisciplinary research unit located in the City College of New York.
Read An Excerpt
Excerpt from "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" by Junot Diaz. Copyright 2008 by Junot Diaz. Reprinted here by permission of Riverhead Trade. All rights reserved.
Comments
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I have to comment on the on-air comment that French speakers were not discriminated against. My daughter is a high school teacher and adjunct professor of French and English in Acadia Parish, Louisiana. Through my visits I have made good friends there as well. Until 1963 it was illegal to speak French in a Louisiana public school classroom. Many older Cajun people remember having their hands slapped with rulers, or receiving spankings or canings for using French, the only language they knew when they started school.
My daughter started building credibility in her community by teaching her sons French and using it in public. Older Cajun folks are still quite shy about using French in public, except amongst themselves.
It is ironic that the State of Louisiana is now embracing French, and calling for French immersion programs in the schools, at the same time it is cutting funding for such programs.