The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Paperback)
Description
The most talked about--and praised--first novel of 2007, and winner of the Pulitzer Prize.
Oscar is a sweet but disastrously overweight ghetto nerd who--from the New Jersey home he shares with his old world mother and rebellious sister-- dreams of becoming the Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien and, most of all, finding love. But Oscar may never get what he wants. Blame the fukú--a curse that has haunted Oscar's family for generations, following them on their epic journey from Santo Domingo to the USA. Encapsulating Dominican-American history, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao opens our eyes to an astonishing vision of the contemporary American experience and explores the endless human capacity to persevere--and risk it all--in the name of love.
About the Author
Junot Díaz's fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and The Best American Short Stories. He was born in the Dominican Republic, raised in New Jersey, and he is a professor at MIT.
Praise for The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao…
Funny, street-smart and keenly observed
An extraordinarily vibrant book thats fueled by adrenaline-powered prose.
Michiko Kakutani, New York Times
Díaz finds a miraculous balance. He cuts his barnburning comic-book plots (escape, ruin, redemption) with honest, messy realism, and his narrator speaks in a dazzling hash of Spanish, English, slang, literary flourishes, and pure virginal dorkiness.
Sam Anderson, New York Magazine
Genius...a story of the American experience that is giddily glorious and hauntingly horrific...That Díazs novel is also full of ideas, that [the narrators] brilliant talking rivals the monologues of Roths Zuckermanin short, that what he has produced is a kick-ass (and truly, that is the just word for it) work of modern fictionall make The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao something exceedingly rare: a book in which a new America can recognize itself, but so can everyone else.
Oscar Villalon, San Francisco Chronicle
Astoundingly great.
Lev Grossman, Time
Terrific...High-energy...It is a joy to read, and every bit as exhilarating to reread.
Jennifer Reese, Entertainment Weekly
