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Old 09-04-2007, 04:20 PM
moviemouth moviemouth is offline
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Join Date: Jul 2005
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Default First Novel In English?

I recently read a novel in Spanish by Junot Diaz titled "Negocios" (Vintage Español 1997 - a very hip and tragicomic look at his childhood in DR and teen years in New Jersey woven in with his abandonment by a father who lit out for the Nueva Yol and never returned. I'm sure it's the same guy (there's a picture on the back cover). Well worth reading.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dolores View Post
New York Times Book critic Michiko Kakutani has given Junot Diaz's new book:

"Junot Díaz’s “Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” is a wondrous, not-so-brief first novel that is so original it can only be described as Mario Vargas Llosa meets “Star Trek” meets David Foster Wallace meets Kanye West. It is funny, street-smart and keenly observed, and it unfolds from a comic portrait of a second-generation Dominican geek into a harrowing meditation on public and private history and the burdens of familial history. An extraordinarily vibrant book that’s fueled by adrenaline-powered prose, it’s confidently steered through several decades of history by a madcap, magpie voice that’s equally at home talking about Tolkien and Trujillo, anime movies and ancient Dominican curses, sexual shenanigans at Rutgers University and secret police raids in Santo Domingo."
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