HAY FESTIVAL 2025- Junot Díaz in conversation with Paola Nagdovich
What does it mean to belong —to one’s home, to language, to memory— in a world shaped by migration and diaspora?
Pulitzer Prize–winning author Junot Díaz joins us for a conversation on identity, race, language, and the emotional complexities of immigrant life. His acclaimed novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao has become a landmark of contemporary literature, praised for its linguistic inventiveness and bold engagement with Dominican-American experience. His short-story collection This Is How You Lose Her was a finalist for the National Book Award and further cemented his place as one of the most distinctive literary voices of his generation.
Díaz’s work —ranging from fiction to essays and children’s literature— interrogates masculinity, memory, and exile. A recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and the PEN/Malamud Award, he currently teaches at MIT and continues to write about diaspora and the politics of narrative from multiple angles and forms.
This event will delve into the stories that shape us and the cultural histories we carry, as Díaz reflects on three decades of work at the intersection of art, activism, and imagination.