Junot Díaz: most important books

Junot Díaz, the Dominican-born author who won a Pulitzer this month for The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, told Newsweek about his five most important books.

And answered two related questions:

A Book You Always Return To:

Samuel R. Delany's "Dhalgren," which best captures that late '60s eruption that has shaped so much of what we call the Now.

A Book You Hope Parents Will Read To Their Kids:

Richard Adams's "Watership Down," which is about the very thing kids dream of: that something small can still be a hero.

Read about Díaz's most important books.

Junot Díaz's fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and The Best American Short Stories. His debut story collection, Drown was a national bestseller and won numerous awards. Michiko Kakutani of The New York Times called The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao “a book that decisively establishes him as one of contemporary fiction's most distinctive and irresistible new voices.”

The Page 99 Test: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

--Marshal Zeringue