Class of 2014
The First-Year Book
Author Junot Díaz with The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
What is this year's first-year book and how do I get a copy?
This year's book for all new students to read over the summer is Junot Díaz's The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Free copies will be distributed to entering students at the Summer Advising Days in June. A copy will be mailed to students who cannot attend an advising day.
What activities are associated with the first-year book program?
Well, we expect you to read it over the summer. Think of it as your first college assignment. When you arrive in August, there will be a small group discussion of the book led by a faculty or staff member and including your advising group and peer mentor. Junot Díaz will be on campus to give a reading on November 8.
What's the point of having a first-year book?
The program accomplishes several things: it gives all new students a common experience over the summer; it allows for an intellectual component to be included in student arrival and orientation; and it introduces students to Washington College's tradition of bringing great writers to campus.
In addition to bringing contemporary writers to campus every year, we have a variety of endowed speaker series that bring important figures in politics, environmental studies, international relations, ethics, journalism, history, literary criticism and art history on a regular basis. We hope that you will take advantage of the superb free programming on campus.
Why was this book chosen?
Junot Díaz's Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel is an innovative and powerful story of a New Jersey teenager from the Dominican Republic whose world is shaped by fantasy literature and comic books on one hand and by his Dominican heritage on the other. The book explores his extended family, the troubled history of the Dominican Republic, and life in high school and college in the contemporary mid-Atlantic United States. It is funny, irreverent, tragic, multilingual, and quite moving.