What is the title of Junot Díaz’s 2008 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel?

Junot Díaz’s 2008 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

Published in 2007, the novel follows Oscar de León, a Dominican American teenager in New Jersey who dreams of becoming a science-fiction and fantasy writer. Its narrator connects Oscar’s personal struggles with the history of the Dominican Republic and his family’s experiences under Rafael Trujillo’s dictatorship.

The novel is notable for its energetic mixture of English and Spanish, extensive footnotes, comic-book references, and discussions of speculative fiction. The title character’s nickname combines his first name with a playful distortion of “Oscar Wilde.”

Díaz received the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for the novel. The award recognized a work that blends family history, political history, popular culture, and inventive narration. A common mix-up is confusing it with Díaz’s later short-story collection This Is How You Lose Her, which was not the Pulitzer-winning book.