Juan Diaz was born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic in 1968. He is known for his spare narrative style, and his seamless integration of Spanish into his English text. He has explored the violent history of the Dominican Republic in his work, and the violence that occurs on an everyday basis in the lives of his characters.
He has been award a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Pulitzer Prize. Diaz is a professor of Creative Writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Wang, Bella. The Brief wondrous life of Oscar Wao: Juan Diaz. Updated and revised edition, GradeSaver, 2010, p. 1.
"I write very, very slowly, and for me, I have to summon all sorts of resources to make one of these pieces work."