I first heard about Junot DÃaz in the early 90s. He was only in his 20s, already publishing in The New Yorker, and getting a lot of wunderkind talk. By 1996, he published, Drown, a bestselling collection of short stories that earned high praise. And then, things slowed down. It took a good eleven years for him to publish The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. But the patience paid off. The novel won him a Pulitzer in fact. And it’s an excellent read. Really.
Having said this, I want to highlight DÃaz reading one of his early New Yorker stories that also found its way into Drown. It’s called How to Date a Brown Girl (Black Girl, White Girl, or Halfie). The free audio clip, which is listed in our collection of Free Audio Books (and produced by The New Yorker), has some colorful language, but it’s not gratuitous.
PS You can buy Drown or The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao as audiobooks from Audible.com at discounted rates. (They’re both cheaper than paper copies.) Get them either for $7.49 a piece (here and here respectively). Or, alternatively, you can snag a free copy if you start a free trial at Audible.com that has no strings attached. The choice is yours.
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