Junot Diaz on libraries and librarians

How valuable are librarians to authors? Well, if the author’s a “snot-nose kid from the Dominican Republic” who worked his way to become one of the most distinctive and fascinating writers in the United States today, the answer is below… 😉

Click the more link to find out what he thinks about the stereotype of librarians in popular culture.

A full transcript of the interview with Junot Diaz will be posted on the Christchurch City Libraries website later today. Here’s a tasty snippet:

“Libraries are a weird thing if you actually think about it. It’s sort of like the logic of capital minus the logic of capital. It’s a place where you can get books for free – and as long as you bring them back – everything’s cool.

“Could you imagine a clothing cultural component like that? Where you could, as long as you orderly waited and wrote your name on a list, rent out an Armani suit in brand new condition and just wear it and bring it back?

“Both are products, it’s just an accident of history that we’ve attributed one a cultural component and the other not. For a poor kid a library to me was as like a miracle to me as if you discovered if you could sign your name and take out a whole wardrobe of Armani clothes. Every day. For the rest of your life. That’s what a library felt like.”

“I never understood the image of librarians in popular culture. Old, sort-of doddering – every librarian I ever had was incredibly young, energetic and hip – even if they were 60. And would take their time for this snot-nose kid from the Dominican Republic to guide them to texts.”

“Everyone has this idea of the valiant archetype – the scout who leads you through the new land. New Zealand has that, the myths of all their like pioneers; Australia, the United States.

“In the end, the only forest really worth being led through is the forest of the mind, books. In a sense librarians are these incredible scouts for this inner frontier. No-one views it as that but for me it was more important than anything having those kinds of scouts who would guide you…

“Everybody makes a living in the arts world off playing up how rough and how tough and how loveless and how edgy their lives were. Mine was as tough as the next person; it wasn’t a fun time. Librarians were the one utopian constant in a world that has no utopian constants. It was the only gift that I still dream about.”

“There’s not a night that goes by that I don’t dream that I’m in a library and I find a book that’s never been written – a new Melville novel, a new Toni Morrison novel. In my dreams I always wake up when I check the book out. I have these dreams non-stop.”

Writer. Rock star. Superhero. Junot Diaz.