A Brief Wondrous Talk with Junot Diaz

Junot Diaz, who won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction for his novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, is coming to town as part of The Bookworm International Literary Festival. Ahead of his visit, we had the chance to ask him about the challenge of teaching at M.I.T., his thoughts on the Haiti earthquake, and why people who read can be considered a special tribe.

What’s it like to teach creative writing at M.I.T.?
Tech kids are some nutty guys, man – they’re about as unconventional as you could get. Part of the challenge and part of the enjoyment for me is to get these young people – who themselves sort of typify the United States sense that art is frivolous – to teach them that art is absolutely essential to a meaningful life, you know? That’s a great struggle, and I enjoy it.

Are they making a movie based on your novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao?
I think it’s just in the planning stages.

Will you be involved?
I write too slow. I think the studio got wise.

What was it like to move from the Dominican Republic to New Jersey?
When you’re a kid, immigration is something that is almost impossible to prepare for – you don’t know what you’re doing, you don’t know what’s supposed to happen. It’s frightening, exhilarating at the same time. When I arrived in ’74, no one even knew what Dominicans were. And the kind of racism that you would see in the ’70s, that kind of open naked prejudice, there’s nothing now to equal that.

Are there other countries you’d like to live in?
I’ve lived in Italy, I’ve lived in Mexico City, and I’ve always wanted to come to Asia and live. I’m one of those people who enjoys coming and settling into a new place – I think one of the reasons I’m coming to China is to scout it out, to see where is the next place I’m going to crash for a while.

What was your research process like for Oscar Wao?
I’m one of those research nerds so I spent a lot of time at the library just kind of trying to put it all together. Did a lot of interviews, traveled a lot to the Dominican Republic. It was intensive – that’s the best way to describe it.

The January 12 earthquake in Haiti reminded me of the fuku (curse) that you write about. Is it something more than a metaphor?
In my book the idea of the fuku wasn’t a metaphor; it was actually an argument about how history works, how the weight of history is never dissipated just by ignoring it. And I think that’s exactly what you see in Haiti: the weight of history, the criminal neglect and grisly abusive predation of international economic policy. The earthquake wasn’t a natural disaster – I think that that’s perhaps the most ridiculous way of looking at it. The earthquake was a social cultural political economic disaster. It was just a trigger to reveal all that Haiti has been suffering at the hands of its neighbors, its powerful neighbors, at the hands of the IMF, at the hands of its corrupt elites. The earthquake just sort of tore the veil off of what was really happening. The only reason Haiti is cursed, if anything, [is that] it’s been victimized by the world for so very long.

What’s your perspective on how the US and the Dominican Republic are dealing with Haitian refugees?
I think if the US was acting like the Dominican Republic, this situation would be far ameliorated. Anyone who’s on the ground, who is on the island, reports that the Dominican response has been overwhelming – a country that is itself devastatingly poor. My friends in Santo Domingo basically describe a country that at least to this point has mobilized itself entirely. The social order, the social fabric of the country has changed; at the moment, we’re under emergency measures to try and bring as much aid to Haiti as possible. And I don’t think the United States has even changed its TV viewing schedule to help Haiti.

What led to Haiti becoming the way it was before the earthquake?
If you really want to help Haiti, if you are really interested in providing a helping hand, I think the first step is to actually familiarize yourself with the country. So I guess that’s my answer – to tell people to go check it, to ask themselves, “Why was Haiti completely self-sufficient in rice production a little while ago, and now finds itself importing all of its rice from subsidized American farmers – increasing, to catastrophic levels, its vulnerability during crisis periods such as earthquakes?” I think that you begin to look at how these things happen, and a very different picture emerges of Haiti.

Are there any books you would recommend on the issue?
To start, look at Mark Danner’s work. I teach for a living, but I’m not a teacher outside of my regular life. As I tell my friends, I’m not a fucking guru. You’ve got two eyes, and you can fucking read, you need to go look shit the fuck up. You ever see that movie The Hangover? You know when they’re like asking the doctor “Oh, where is that located” and he’s like, “Between fuck off and go get yourself a fucking map!” That in many ways encapsulates my philosophy towards grown people. If you were 12 years old and asking me, I would fucking help, I would bend over backwards, but grown people? Come on, man.

What will you be talking about at The Bookworm International Literary Festival?
I’m just going to be doing a reading. Some writers might be talking heads, but I just kinda like to talk about literature so I’m just going to read from my book and take some questions, call it a day. The opportunity is to really get to meet readers – it’s one of the remarkable things about doing these events. You’ll never get to meet a concentrated community of readers the way you do when you go to literary festivals. And that’s so heartening, it’s so inspiring. In some ways, beyond the standard levels of race and culture and geography, I always think that my central identity is reading – like, readers are my other race. And it’s nice to come home, it’s nice to be surrounded in some way by family, and that’s what it feels like when I go to these things.

Junot Diaz will take part in a Literary Dinner on March 9, discuss new writing from the Americas on March 10 and be feted at a Gala Dinner for authors on March 12. Details at The Bookworm's festival website.