Natalie Diaz
Natalie Diaz (born September 4, 1978) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning, Latina and Mojave American poet, language activist, former professional basketball player, and educator. She is enrolled in the Gila River Indian Community and identifies as Akimel O'
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Natalie Diaz (born September 4, 1978) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning, Latina and Mojave American poet, language activist, former professional basketball player, and educator. She is enrolled in the Gila River Indian Community and identifies as Akimel O'odham.
Her work appeared in Narrative, Poetry magazine, Drunken Boat, Prairie Schooner, Iowa Review, and Crab Orchard Review.
Diaz's debut book of poetry, When My Brother Was an Aztec, was a 2012 Lannan Literary Selection, a 2013 PEN/Open Book Award shortlist, and “portrays experiences rooted in Native American life with personal and mythic power.” One important focus of the book is a brother's addiction to crystal meth.
In 2012, she was interviewed about her poetry and language rehabilitation work on the PBS News Hour. In 2018, she was named as the Maxine and Jonathan Marshall Chair in Modern and Contemporary Poetry at Arizona State University.
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