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Author Junot Diaz withdraws from festival amid allegations

SYDNEY — Author Junot Diaz has withdrawn from a writers’ festival in Australia after fellow writers accused him of past sexual misconduct and misogyny, organizers said Saturday, adding that a moment of reckoning had arrived for the Pulitzer Prize winner.

Diaz was confronted Friday in a Q&A session at the Sydney Writers’ Festival by author Zinzi Clemmons. She asked Diaz about his recent New Yorker essay detailing his sexual assault as an 8-year-old boy and then asked him why he had put her in a vulnerable position when she was a student six years ago.

Clemmons, who penned the coming-of-age novel “What We Lose,” later tweeted that when she was a 26-year-old graduate student, Diaz cornered her and forcibly kissed her after she invited him to speak at a workshop.

Subsequently, writers Carmen Maria Machado and Monica Byrne tweeted they had also been subjected to inappropriate and aggressive behavior from Diaz.

In a statement Saturday, the Sydney Writers’ Festival said that following the allegations, Diaz had pulled out of his remaining scheduled appearances at the festival. It said organizers were committed to providing a “supportive and safe environment for our authors and audiences alike.”

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