(Carson, CA) – Junot Díaz, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao,” will be the guest speaker for the California State University, Dominguez Hills (CSUDH) Department of English’s 2018 Patricia Eliet Memorial Lecture on Feb. 1.
WHEN: Thursday, Feb. 1, from 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m.
WHERE: University Theatre, CSUDH, 1000 E. Victoria St., Carson, CA 90747. Click here for directions and a printable campus map.
The lecture is FREE and open to the public, but tickets are required.
TICKETS: click here.
During the lecture, Díaz will address issues that coincide with “¡Adelante! Latinx Activism in California,” a spring 2018 campus-wide series of events exploring key moments in regional history and important issues affecting the Latinx community, as well as “50 Years of Activism, Mobilization and Black & Brown Collaboration,” the university’s recognition of Black History Month. Díaz will sign his books after the lecture.
Born in the Dominican Republic and raised in New Jersey, Diaz speaks eloquently about his own complex identity as an Afro-Latino from the Caribbean, and the myriad ways his writing and activism has been shaped by a desire to interrogate the history of racial, gender, and class domination in the Americas.
Díaz gained critical acclaim in 1997 with his first book, “Drown,” a semi-autobiographical collection of short stories that focuses on a teenager’s impoverished, fatherless youth in the Dominican Republic and his struggle adapting to his new life in New Jersey. “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” was Diaz’ first novel. A multi-generational story of the Dominican-American experience, the novel received not only the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, but also the John Sargent, Sr. First Novel Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. His second collection of short stories, “This Is How You Lose Her,” was a 2012 finalist for the National Book Award. His latest work, a children’s picture book, “Islandborn” is due out in March.
Díaz is the recipient of a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship, PEN/Malamud Award, Dayton Literary Peace Prize, Guggenheim Fellowship, and PEN/O. Henry Award. He is currently the fiction editor at Boston Review and the Rudge and Nancy Allen Professor of Writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The Patricia Eliet Memorial Lecture is annually event put on by the Department of English in memory of the former professor of English who taught at the university from 1969 to 1990.
For more information on the Patricia Eliet Memorial Lecture, please call (310) 243-3322 or email Rod Hernandez at rhernandez@csudh.edu.
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About California State University, Dominguez Hills
California State University, Dominguez Hills, centrally located in the greater Los Angeles South Bay region, is a model urban university with a wide range of academic programming, providing accessible, high quality, and transformative education to students aspiring to succeed and thrive in a complex, global society. Since 1960, CSU Dominguez Hills has served a diverse community of learners and educators collaborating to change lives and communities for the better. A national model and laboratory for student success, the university offers a proven path to opportunity and social equity, advancing a college-focused culture in the communities it serves while providing vital resources of knowledge, talent, and leadership to the greater Los Angeles region and beyond.
Today, CSU Dominguez Hills boasts over 100,000 alumni – doctors, scientists, engineers, educators, entrepreneurs – who are leaders in education, health, technology, entertainment, public service, and business, making a difference in their fields, in people’s lives, and in their communities. For more information, visit www.csudh.edu.
