We have been glad to hear, although not really surprised, that Junot Diaz fantastic book has won a Pulitzer. The review below was written by fellow blogger Chirimoya and reproduced with permission:
This was not one of those 'unputdownable' books - it was better than that. You want to savour it and keep on savouring it, like a thrilling train journey that you wish will never end.
For those of us well-versed in the history of the Dominican Republic and the Dominican diaspora, whether through fiction or first-hand experience, Díaz takes us through familiar landscapes - the family in exile - mothers and daughters, brothers and sisters, sex and death, fear and loathing in the DR during the dictatorship - he even namechecks Vargas Llosa when he tells his own version of Trujillo and the virginal Cabral daughter - but his high-paced, manic, smart-talking narration takes it - and us - into new dimensions.
The best thing for me was the 'watcher' - the narrator, whose commentary is peppered with witty self-deprecation, smart pop cultural references, the endless nerdy allusions to fantasy fiction perhaps laid on a bit too thick, but it is such a ride that you are truly sorry when it is over. Even the footnotes are a joy - the historical context is given a merciless satirical spin, his descriptions of historical figures like Trujillo and Balaguer especially. The author himself pokes his head into the narrative here and there - he admits to making factual mistakes earlier on in the story, and even greets the reader.
It took Díaz some ten years to churn out this book - surely a nerve-wracking challenge in the light of the high expectations generated by his book of short stories Drown, published in the mid-1990s - I bet he is so gratified with the result, not to mention the rapturous reception it seems to be getting.
You can find The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao in our shop.
