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The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
By Junot Diaz
Riverhead, 340 pages, $24.95
Meet Oscar, the nerdy, obese, socially awkward boy from the Dominican Republic, transplanted to New Jersey, who escapes his alienation thanks to his fantasy world of science fiction and comic books. The novel, following “Drown,” Junot Diaz’s acclaimed story collection of 1996, updates the traditional immigrant tale. Diaz creates a unique voice and language, a sort of fusion of Spanish and English, street talk and library language, and the result is a book that dazzles.
