The Brief Wondrous Life of Yunior

In the veritable sea of Cubans that is South Florida, Dominican-American Junot Díaz stands out. Author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Díaz recently set out to tell the story of Yunior de Las Casas, a Dominican-cum-Jersey boy like Díaz who takes about as many missteps in love...

By Kathleen Halliday

September 20, 2012

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In the veritable sea of Cubans that is South Florida, Dominican-American Junot Díaz stands out. Author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Díaz recently set out to tell the story of Yunior de Las Casas, a Dominican-cum-Jersey boy like Díaz who takes about as many missteps in love as is humanly possible. Through his relationships with his mother, his brother, and his various girlfriends, we see in Yunior the same desperation for love and penchant for failure that we so often see in ourselves. As depressing as this all may sound, there is levity to be found in Díaz’s latest work. Yunior is flippant, equivocating, and endlessly indulgent—all qualities you’d hate in a boyfriend, but find amusing in a narrator. But why listen to us talk about This Is How You Lose Her when you could hear the author himself? Díaz, who won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2008 for Oscar Wao, will be discussing Yunior, his story, and his writing this week at Coral Gables Congregational Church.
Sat., Sept. 22, 7:30 p.m., 2012

Kathleen Halliday earned an MA in electronic communication and publishing from University College London. While she was living in the UK, she met her husband, who patiently listens to her wax poetic about literature and crime shows.

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