We could all use a little bit more Junot Díaz in our lives.
The bestselling author of “The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao,” “Drown,” and “This Is How You Lose Her,” has made readers laugh, cry, and reflect. The beauty of his writing lies in his capacity for building empathy for complex characters, often wracked by the all-too-human failings we all suffer from: doubt, envy, pride.
Now, Diaz will be bringing the realness to a new audience: children.
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Twenty years after promising his goddaughters he’d write a picture book, Díaz is ready to deliver, the New York Times reports.
Entitled “Islandborn,” the 48-page book, according to the Times, “engages with many of the same themes that Mr. Díaz has wrestled with in his fiction: immigration and identity, the weight of collective memory, and feelings of displacement and belonging.”
In that sense, it’s the perfect book for Global Citizens of all ages, not just the youngest generation of them.
The book follows Lola, a young girl from Manhattan’s Washington Heights. Born in the Dominican Republic, but raised in New York, Lola grapples with her dual-identity after being asked to draw a picture of where her parents came from.
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In her quest to learn about her parents’ story, she uncovers the myriad joys and sorrows her family and relatives have experienced in the breach between the US and the DR.
For Díaz, writing a picture book that highlights the stories of first- and second-generation immigrants in America was an opportunity to tell a story not just for his goddaughters or for the estimated 1.8 million Dominicans living in the US, but to tell one that would resonate with a huge swath of the US immigrant population.
“Behind their request was this longing for books and stories that resonated for them and included them, and opened a space where they could be protagonists in the world,” Díaz said.
The book is slated for release in March 2018, according to Vibe, and Díaz intends to print an initial 150,000 copies.
And for those who are truly forward-thinking, there’s some more good news: Díaz is already thinking about a sequel.