Junot Diaz, writer: People like to hate migrants, but the hard part is standing up to power'

"Some people mistake writer Junot Diaz, 56, for a rock star even though he doesn't look like one. The writer who does look like one and who also wanders the halls is Mariana Enriquez, with her gray hair and black clothes. The Argentine is another illustrious participant in the Cosmopoetica Festival, which ended on October 5. What the audacious Leiva fan doesn't know is that he's standing before a Pulitzer Prize-winning author."

"I won it the same way someone wins the lottery! the author jokes. Although, his hybrid language that Spanglish, that cheekiness, that humor (which he also displays in person) surely contributed. A friend of mine says that the [most widespread] language in the world is badly spoken English.' But I say, in general, that it's any badly spoken language, the writer points out."

Junot Díaz, born in Santo Domingo, won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. He emigrated to New Jersey at age six because his father supported dictator Rafael Leónidas Trujillo and became a target during the subsequent civil war. Díaz writes and teaches in English, produces short stories for The New Yorker and reviews for The New York Times, and often mentally checks his expression after conversations. He embraces a hybrid Spanglish that blends cheekiness and humor, yet experiences ongoing insecurity about speaking both Spanish and English. Mariana Enriquez attended the same Cosmopoetica Festival and presented a rock-star appearance.

Read at english.elpais.com