Recently seen in the news:

Junot Diaz’s Novel, “Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao,” Wins Pulitzer

April 7 (Bloomberg)—Junot Diaz’s first novel, “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao,’’ won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction today, having already won the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Diaz first made a splash with a book of short stories, “Drown,’’ in 1996, and then spent 10 years writing “Oscar Wao,’’ the story of a geeky boy from a Dominican family living in New Jersey.

This is interesting news for me because the author is a close friend of a colleague of mine at work. Having read The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, I can say that it is certainly worthy of a Pulitzer. I have yet to read Drown, but it also comes highly recommended by a number of people whose opinions about literature are generally right on the money. Consider reading either (or both). I don’t think you will regret it.

Junot Diaz reads his story “How to Date a Brown Girl (Black Girl, White Girl, or Halfie)” published in The New Yorker in 1995 and taken from his short-story collection “Drown” in the New Yorker fiction podcast series.
http://www.newyorker.com/online/2007/06/11/070611on_audio_danticat

Usually another writer chooses and reads a short story from the magazine, and discusses it with the fiction editor. This is unusally a chance to hear Diaz read his own story.

Stories in the whole series can be downloaded for free and/or one can subscribe to the whole series in iTunes.