Junot Diaz

I don't know if anyone went to the VWS last night, but Junot Diaz was the speaker. Besides the fact that he is amazing, as a person and a writer, his book "The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" reminds me of this class. If any of you are real sci fi fans you'd love it and those of you who could not care less about sci fi...you'd love it too! The main character, Oscar, is an overweight nerdy dominican-american boy who is obsessed with all things sci fi. There were so many references to comic books, movies, tv shows, and books of the science fiction genre. From the Watchmen to Dr. Who to LOTR to Dune the references are endless. Diaz also was asked last night if, since he knew so much about sci fi (enough to put in a million references and write entire passages in what called "nerdish") and he said that his next book, whenever he got around to it, would be science fiction a few years in the future in a city like new york+mexico city that mysteriously gets destroyed and a girl who lost her parents in that city tries to piece together what happened by talking to witnesses etc and he said, although that doesnt sound completely science fiction, there would be characters who see the future, who are telepathic, among other things. Anyways, I just thought it was interesting and I really really recommend Diaz's work especially Oscar Wao--but it does have some swearing and mature content so if that offends, I would not recommend reading it.