Interview: Junot Diaz

Fiction writer Junot Diaz is the author of the celebrated story collection Drown, as well as stories published in Story, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Best American Short Stories, and African Voices. His long story "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" will serve as part of a novel of the same same, to be published in Fall 2007 by Riverhead Books. Diaz was born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, and now teaches fiction writing at MIT.

He appeared at the Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium of Goldwin Smith Hall on February 22, 2007. This interview took place the previous day.

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Interview: Elizabeth Alexander

Elizabeth Alexander is a poet, essayist, playwright, and teacher. She is the author of four books of poems, The Venus Hottentot, Body of Life, Antebellum Dream Book, and American Sublime, which was one of three finalists for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize. She is also a scholar of African-American literature and culture and recently published a collection of essays, The Black Interior. She has read her work across the U.S. and in Europe, the Caribbean, and South America, and her poetry, short stories, and critical prose have been published in dozens of periodicals and anthologies. She has received many grants and honors, most recently the Alphonse Fletcher, Sr. Fellowship for work that “contributes to improving race relations in American society and furthers the broad social goals of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954.” She is a professor at Yale University and lives in New Haven, Connecticut.

Alexander appeared at the Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium of Goldwin Smith Hall on February 8, 2007. This interview took place earlier that morning.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN (20MB MP3)