In '94, I started writing a novel about an enormous terrorist act that destroyed the United States. The novel takes place twenty years after this destruction, with all the stuff that we're dealing with now - a dirty war, the disappeared, the concept of terrorism. Anyway, 9/11 happened some years into the process, and I was like, OK, I don't have a novel.
Junot DiazIt's just a matter of willpower. The day you decide it's over, it's over. You never get over it.
Junot DiazMy art feels like it's real disobedient. I can fill notebooks with observations and maybe they find their way into the work unconsciously, which is great. I've never been able to directly plug, like to take a little snip that I've picked up on the street and transfer it into a story. I don't know what's wrong, but it never works that way.
Junot DiazAs expected: she, the daughter of the Fall, recipient of its heaviest radiation, loved atomically.
Junot Diaz