Miami, Feb. 26, 2018 – Miami Dade College’s (MDC) Miami Book Fair and Books & Books present an Evening with Pulitzer Prize-winning and New York Times bestselling author Junot Diaz at 6:30 p.m. on Friday, March 16. Diaz will speak on the genesis of his first picture book, Islandborn, a beautifully illustrated and moving meditation on the immigrant experience as a young child.
Islandborn is about the magic of memory and the infinite power of the imagination. When Lola’s teacher asks the students to draw a picture of where their families immigrated from, all the kids are excited, except Lola. She can’t remember The Island—she left when she was just a baby. But with the help of her family and friends, and their memories—joyous, fantastical, heartbreaking, and frightening—Lola’s imagination takes her on an extraordinary journey back to The Island. As she draws closer to the heart of her family’s story, Lola comes to understand the truth of her abuela’s words: “Just because you don’t remember a place doesn’t mean it’s not in you.” Gloriously illustrated and lyrically written, Islandborn is a celebration of creativity, diversity, and our imagination’s boundless ability to connect us—to our families, to our past and to ourselves.
Díaz was born in the Dominican Republic and raised in New Jersey. He is the author of the critically-acclaimed Drown and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award; and This Is How You Lose Her, a New York Times bestseller and National Book Award finalist. A graduate of Rutgers University, Díaz is currently the fiction editor at Boston Review and the Rudge and Nancy Allen Professor of Writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Tickets: Adult and parent + child tickets are $22.51 and include a copy of Islandborn. To purchase and for more information, visit https://www.miamibookfair.com/event/an-evening-with-junot-diaz.
WHAT: An Evening with Junot Diaz
WHEN: Friday, March 16, at 6:30 p.m. | Book signing at 6 p.m.
WHERE: MDC Wolfson Campus Auditorium (Building 1, second floor)
300 N.E. 2nd Ave.
Miami Book Fair media contact: Lisa Palley, 305-642-3132, lpalley@bellsouth.net.