Díaz Interview

The SF Chronicle‘s Edward Guthmann interviews Junot Díaz, who was in town to support the staging of his short story, “The Sun, The Moon, The Stars,” at Intersection for the Arts in San Francisco. Of course, the subject of that long-awaited second novel came up:

As a Latin American author, Diaz feels a mandate to give young Latinos, especially Dominican Americans, a voice and a touchstone to measure their experience. The problem, he freely admits, is the fact that he’s an incredibly slow writer. “The Sun, the Moon, the Stars” took a year. It’s been 10 years since “Drown” was published, and the novel he’s working on is in its fifth year of gestation.

Diaz sighs at the thought of his uncooperative work rhythms. “Who doesn’t want to be constantly working?” he asks. “I drove myself nuts for a couple years, gave myself a lot of hassle.” At the beginning of writing his novel, “I was a lot more deranged about it ’cause I didn’t have the sense that I was ever going to find my way through it. Then I finally began to embrace my inner slowpoke.

If you read this blog consistently, you know how much I adore and admire Díaz, so go on over there and read the piece.