Dominican writer Juno Diaz wins the prestigious Sunday Times short story award for 'Miss Lora.' (Google)
Dominican writer Juno Diaz wins the prestigious Sunday Times short story award for ‘Miss Lora.’ (Google)

Charlotte Williams of TheBookseller.com is reporting that Dominican writer Junot Diaz has added yet another accolade to his dossier. The Pulitzer prize-winning, MacArthur genius grant recipient, has won the Sunday Times short story award for “Miss Lora” a story set in 1980s New Jersey. The story tackles sexual relationships between adolescent boys and older women.

Diaz received a ÂŁ30,000 ($46,000 US) check from novelist and prize judge Joanna Trollope at a ceremony at the Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival.

Williams reports:

“Judge Andrew O’Hagan said the story has ‘the feel of a contemporary classic’ and that ‘it echoes in the heart as well as in the mind.'”

Alison Flood of The Guardian (UK) reports:

“The author called ‘Miss Lora’ a ‘challenging’ story to write. ‘We tend, as a culture, to think of boys having underage sex quite differently to how we think of girls. I find that quite disturbing, and wanted to question the logic of that,’ he said. ‘If a boy has sex with his teacher, people under their breath are kind of high-fiving the kid. If a 16- or 15-year-old girl has sex with an older teacher – forget about it. No one’s celebrating. That seemed really strange.'”

Read more at TheBookseller.com or The Guardian (UK).

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