I know, the news is a couple of hours old, but I just got out of class. As I felt in my gut would happen (ask my friends: I've been predicting this for months), Junot Diaz has become only the second Latino ever to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for "Oscar Wao."
I'm excited not only because he's a Dominican diasporic congenere (generational peer), but because finally I can talk about "the Latino Pulitzer winner" and not mean Oscar Hijuelos, whose Mambo Kings I always found sexist, sentimental and reconfirming in the eyes of the U.S. market the worst stereotypes about Latin heat, obsession with nostalgia and pinga-centrism (Count the number of penis references per page if you don't believe me).
Yes, Junot had already won the National Book Critics Circle Award, which is nothing to sneeze at, but everyone knows the big kahuna in American letters is the Pulitzer.
The only thing that would make me happier this year would be to see the Mets win the World Series.
UPDATE: Here is a quickie commentary I did for New American Media on the significance of Junot's Pulitzer. I claim him as the first tiguere to win the prize.
"The only thing that would make me happier this year would be to see the Mets win the World Series."
Don't be greedy now.
Posted by: Kiko Jones | April 07, 2008 at 06:59 PM
I was waiting for your smarty-pants comment on Los Mets, Kiko. :-P
Posted by: Caro | April 07, 2008 at 07:33 PM
A well-deserved award.
Posted by: richard | April 07, 2008 at 08:15 PM
go Junot!
um, who are the Mets?
Posted by: jace | April 08, 2008 at 12:52 AM
Damn, what is up with y'all hating on the Mets???? S'alright, I can take it.
Posted by: Caro | April 08, 2008 at 08:24 AM
"...ask my friends: I've been predicting this for months"
Um, am I not one of them? [sniff]'cause I don't recall this conversation...damn, I've been kicked to the curb, yet again. Ha!
Go, Junot!
(I bet, now, they'll be all over him in the Dominican.)
Posted by: Kiko Jones | April 09, 2008 at 03:11 PM
Kiko, I even predicted this on this very blog.
http://soundtaste.typepad.com/sound_taste/2007/11/can-the-pulitze.html
Posted by: Caro | April 09, 2008 at 05:18 PM
(I bet, now, they'll be all over him in the Dominican.)
No they won't..because it's not Bachata or Baseball. Not one spread yet almost a week after him winning...
Manny Ramirez, David Ortiz, and the injured Pedro Martinez (and now Johnny Cueto) will remain the current media Gods in our motherland, no matter how many Pulitzer awards our writers win.
So sad to say...
Posted by: Harold Martinez | April 11, 2008 at 02:01 PM