Invoking Joyce, Avoiding Imitation: Junot Díaz’s Portrait of Nerds in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

There are several hints in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007) that Junot Díaz has been more influenced by Irish modernist James Joyce than he declares. As a modernist, Joyce emphasized the importance of detachment and disobedience to the ethos of the modern artist. He felt it was significant for an artist to innovate his own language because doing so invites new aesthetic styles and engenders political resistance to the dominant culture. Joyce’s 1916 novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man provides an exposition of how an aesthetic pursuit coincides with a political rebellion against British imperialism. This article argues that, for these reasons, Joyce is an important precursor to Díaz. I read Díaz’s novel alongside Joyce’s and offer textual sites that suggest Joyce’s influence on Díaz. In doing so, I demonstrate that Díaz values and inherits Joyce’s literary style while modifying some of his modes. Focusing on the link between Díaz and Joyce can expand our understanding of Díaz’s work and place a new emphasis on his connection with the Irish modernist.