DESC: Oscar Wao is an overweight Dungeons & Dragons-playing geek living in a Dominican-American ghetto whose dreams are cut short by the 500-year curse that has plagued his family and his people, "The Curse of the New World." In his first novel since his universally revered collection of short stories, DROWN, Junot Diaz continues to distill the essence of the fractured second-generation experience. The rich tapestry of language in the novel (slang, Spanish, and the poetry of Homer) speaks volumes about the complicated and violent paths by which we find our place in the world. THE BRIEF WONDROUS LIFE OF OSCAR WAO won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 2008.