Junot Díaz denies sexual misconduct allegations: Doesn't sound like anything that's me

Boston: Pulitzer Prize-winning author Junot Díaz is speaking out about the sexual misconduct allegations against him. The Boston Globe reports Díaz adamantly denies the accusations from women who say he behaved inappropriately. Díaz says it doesn’t sound “like anything that’s in my life, anything that’s me.” [caption id=“attachment_4646891” align=“alignnone” width=“825”] File image of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Junot Diaz. The Associated Press/ Bebeto Matthews[/caption] Author Zinzi Clemmons and other female writers have recently shared stories of Díaz’s behaviour. Clemmons said Diaz forcibly kissed her several years ago; others cited instances when they felt he had verbally attacked them. “Junot Díaz has made his behaviour the burden of young women — particularly women of colour — for far too long, enabled by his team and the institutions that employ him,” Clemmons had written in a statement to The Associated Press. “It is time for the burden of his bad behaviour to be laid squarely at his feet, and for him to deal with the consequences of his actions.” Díaz has said he takes responsibility for his past actions. In a published essay in the New Yorker, Díaz had opened up about his own experience with rape and the consequent trauma that affected his personal life. Díaz is keeping his teaching and editing positions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Boston Review following separate investigations into wrongdoing. A top editor at Boston Review said the accusations lacked “the kind of severity” that animated the #MeToo movement.