Junot Díaz was born in the Dominican Republic and raised in New Jersey. He is the author of the short story collection Drown and the novel The Brief Curious Life of Oscar Wao , for which he won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2008. His short story collection And That's How You Lose Her was named one of the 100 Best Books of 2012 by The New York Times. He teaches creative writing at MIT.