It’s the birthday of Junot Diaz (b. 1968), best known for his novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007), which won both the Pulitzer and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and who has been embroiled in the #MeToo movement this past year amid allegations of sexual harassment.

Diaz was born in the Dominican Republic, one of five children, and at the age of six moved to New Jersey, where the family lived in poverty; his father left when Diaz was 12 or 13. While growing up, Diaz devoured a lot of SF and fantasy, finding that such fiction resonated with his extreme experiences as an immigrant. In an April 2018 New Yorker article, Diaz recounts how he was raped at eight years old by a highly trusted grownup and how this event, which Diaz kept secret, led to years of trauma, mood swings, and suicide attempts.

Diaz studied at Rutgers University, where he discovered writers like Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Gloria Naylor, and Sandra Cisneros, and began writing himself. His first book, the short story collection Drown (1996), shifts between the barrios of Santo Domingo to the ghettos of New Jersey and was very well received, but his next book, Oscar Wao, did not appear for 11 years; he says he mostly stopped writing due to his depression and trauma.

Oscar Wao then appeared to huge critical acclaim. Michiko Kakutani’s review in The New York Times began, “Junot Diaz’s ‘Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao’ is a wondrous, not-so-brief first novel that is so original it can only be described as Mario Vargas Llosa meets ‘Star Trek’ meets David Foster Wallace meets Kanye West.” She went on to praise his “streetwise brand of Spanglish.” The novel’s main character, Oscar, is a depressed, fat, nerdy kid who aspires to be the “Dominican Tolkien” and whose sister and college roommate, both narrators, try to help. The story takes place during the exceptionally cruel reign of dictator Rafael Trujillo, who is described as ruling Santo Domingo “like it was his very own private Mordor.”

Diaz’ second collection of short stories, This Is How You Lose Her, came out in 2012 and was a finalist for the National Book Award. Diaz has also written a children’s picture book, Islandborn (2018), about Dominican girls in the Bronx.

In May 2018, writer Zinzi Clemmons accused Diaz of forcibly kissing her years earlier when she was a graduate student; others have come forward with accounts of verbal abuse and misogynistic behavior from Diaz. (And yes, even in this day and age, I had to look up how to spell “misogynistic.” Either I’m losing it, or a week on Sudafed is taking its toll on my brain.) The literary community has been sharply divided on the issue ever since. M.I.T., where Diaz teaches, said it reviewed Diaz’ behavior, found no evidence of misconduct, and will retain him as a faculty member, which decision divided the community still further.

Could we all please just behave ourselves in 2019?

Have a brilliant rest of your Monday, a Happy New Year tonight, and stay scrupulously honest to the data.