Junot Díaz: ‘Read more rebelliously’
Brooklyn BookBeat: ‘Oscar Wao’ Author Draws Overflow Crowd to St. Francis College
Junot Díaz fans spilled out onto Remsen Street in Brooklyn Heights Thursday evening, eager to hear the Pulitzer Prize-winning author speak about his work at a St. Francis College event. While the fortunate ones packed the school’s Founders Hall, Díaz generously treated the crowd that was turned away to an impromptu discussion before the event began, expressing his gratitude that so many people turned up. The “overflow room,” as he called it, was able to watch the event live on St. Francis College’s Periscope channel.
Díaz, whose 2007 novel “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” was recently named the best novel of the 21st century to date by BBC Culture, was visiting St. Francis College as the latest speaker in the school’s Walt Whitman Writers Series.
Before reading, he took the time to get a feel for his audience, polling the crowd to see how many students, immigrants, Latinos, people of African descent, folks from the Caribbean and New Jersey people were present. “I’m trying to see how many people here are stuck in my categories,” he explained.
Díaz read from his first book, a collection of stories titled “Drown,” highlighting a piece called “Boyfriend,” which he revealed was inspired by his days spent living on State Street in Brooklyn in the early ’90s. “I wrote this story because of my crazy Brooklyn neighbors,” he shared, before launching into the passage, which features a narrator who keenly observes his downstairs neighbors, referred to merely as “Boyfriend” and “Girlfriend.” Bringing the scene to life with an animated delivery of his character’s poignant, vulgar and often hilarious musings, Díaz drew a steady stream of laughter from the crowd.