Junot Diaz accused of sexual misconduct

THE world of literature was plunged into new controversy over inappropriate sexual behaviour yesterday after claims that a revered author forcibly kissed a young writer.

Junot Diaz, who received the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for his novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, stands accused by Zinzi Clemmons of making unwanted advances when she was a graduate student.

Her accusations prompted other women to come forward with their own claims over Diaz’s behaviour.

It comes just days after the Swedish Academy announced it was cancelling this year’s Nobel Prize for Literature amid allegations of sexual misconduct and financial malpractice.

Clemmons confronted Diaz at the Sydney Writers Festival in Australia when, during a question and answer session, she addressed him from the floor about a recent essay he had published in The New Yorker de- tailing a sexual experienced as year-old.

She then asked why he had treated her the way he had six years earlier, when she was a graduate student at Columbia University.

Clemmons, who teaches writing at Occidental College in Los Angeles, went on to claim on Twitter that Diaz had forcibly kissed her.

“As a grad student, I invited Junot Diaz to speak to a workshop on issues of representation in literature,” she wrote. “I was an unknown, wide-eyed 26-year-old, and he used it as an opportunity to corner and forcibly kiss me. I’m far from the only one he’s done this to. I refuse to be silent any more.”

Diaz did not respond directly to the claims, but issued a statement through his literary agent in which he said: “I take responsibility for my past. That is the reason I made the decision to tell the truth of my rape and its damaging aftermath.”

He did not respond to requests for comment from The Sunday Telegraph.