Díaz's first collection of short stories, "Drown", was published in 1996. His first novel, "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" was published in 2007. It is about a Dominican boy called Oscar Wao, who is growing up in New Jersey. It took him 11 years to write. The book uses both English and Spanish. In 2012 Díaz released a collection of short stories called "This Is How You Lose Her". He was given the $500,000 MacArthur "Genius grant" award. In 2013 he won the £30,000 Sunday Times EFG Private Bank short story prize. Díaz joins other Hispanic-American writers such as Gloria Anzaldúa, Sandra Cisneros, and Giannina Braschi who use Spanglish phrases in their stories. Spanglish is a mix of English words and Spanish words.