Thursday, December 17, 2009

The 25 all-time greatest Gen X books

The editors at Details developed a list of the 25 greatest Gen X books of all time.

One novel on their list:
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Díaz

Rumors and expectations abounded in the 11 nearly silent years between Díaz's legendary story collection Drown and Oscar Wao, but no one anticipated that a story about a virginal, obese Dominican nerd (and the generations-long family struggle that preceded him) could be written with such slangy exuberance, and explore so powerfully and originally the links between colonial politics, fantasy escapism, and the American immigrant experience.
Read about another book on the list.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao also appears on Paste magazine's list of the ten best debut novels of the decade (2000-2009) and among The Millions' best books of fiction of the millenium. The novel is one of Matthew Kaminski's five favorite novels about immigrants in America.

See Junot Díaz's most important books and the Page 99 Test: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

--Marshal Zeringue