Novelist Junot Díaz Bases New Picture Book In Washington Heights: Report

WASHINGTON HEIGHTS, NY — Pulitzer prize winning novelist Junot Díaz' next book will be set in Washington Heights, the author told the New York Times. Díaz' "Islandborn," a children's picture book, will be released next spring, according to the Times.

"Islandborn" will focus on the story of a young girl named Lola, the Times reported. Lola, who was born in the Dominican Republic but moved to Washington Heights when she was a baby, interviews her family members about life the in old country after getting a school assignment to draw the place her family comes from, according to the report.

Díaz, who won the Pulitzer Prize for his 2007 novel "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao," told the Times that "Islandborn" is the author's way of delivering on a 20-year-old promise to his two goddaughters to write a children's book that "featured characters like them, Dominican girls living in the Bronx.," the Times reported.

“Behind their request was this longing for books and stories that resonated for them and included them, and opened a space where they could be protagonists in the world,” Diaz told the Times.

The book will be released next spring by publisher Dial Books for Young Readers.

Read the full New York Times story here.

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