Q&A: Junot Díaz on his new book
Junot Díaz may work slowly, in his own estimation, but the results are fast-moving stories that quickly etch themselves in our minds. The story collection This Is How You Lose Her, published today by Riverhead Books, is Díaz’s third book, following Drown (1996) and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007), which won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Like Drown, the new volume is a series of interwoven stories, mostly following Yunior, a young Dominican-American who intermittently wrecks relationships and continually regrets the results. Díaz, the Rudge and Nancy Allen Professor of Writing at MIT, recently spoke to MIT News about his new book. Q. When did you know the book was ready?A. I always knew that the book had to have a certain arc to it before it was done. It’s kind of like making a stew. There’s just a certain point where you’re like, “Yes, got it.”...