'This was a film that altered me forever': Junot Díaz on Julie Dash's Daughters of the Dust

You never know when a work of art - whether it's a sculpture, book, mural or photograph - is going to punch you in the gut with inspiration or understanding or emotion, and with an impact that will last the rest of your life. For Pulitzer Prize-winning author Junot Díaz, the work of art that changed his life was the 1991 film Daughters of the Dust by American director Julie Dash.

Díaz, who was born in the Dominican Republic and raised in New Jersey, first encountered the film in his final year of university when he was coming to "full grips with what it means to be a person in the African diaspora." He explains, "there I was in college, beginning to think deeply about the sort of historical nightmare that brought us all into being and Daughters of the Dust is released."

Junot Díaz tells us about the film that changed his life

7 years ago

Duration 3:22

"About thirty minutes into this film I realized that I was seeing something more or less earth-shaking."

The film tells the multi-generational story of an African-American family living in the Sea Islands off of the coast of South Carolina at the turn of the century. The family is faced with the decision to migrate to the U.S. mainland or stay on their home island where they have been able to preserve their own culture for years. Though the story is rooted in history, it's a poetic and imaginative film that is often cited as an influence for Beyoncé's visual album, Lemonade.

In this video, the author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and the upcoming children's book Islandborn reflects on the "tremendous impact" that Dust's film had on him as both "a person and as an artist."

Watch CBC Arts: Exhibitionists on Friday nights at 11:30pm (12am NT) and Sundays at 3:30pm (4pm NT) on CBC Television.