NBCC awards for Caribbean-American writers

Editor Nicholas Laughlin is on his travels again, but once he gets back I'm sure he will have something to say about two of the National Book Critics' Circle awards announced last week.

Junot Diaz, who was born in the Dominican Republic and moved to New York with his family as a child, won the fiction award for his debut novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

And Edwidge Danticat, who was born next door in Haiti and followed a similar migrant's path to the US, won the autobiography prize for her memoir Brother, I'm Dying.

Both books were on the CRB's list of the best books of 2007 announced in January.