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The Pulitzer Prize Board announced Thursday it will be conducting an independent review of sexual misconduct and abuse claims against award-winning author Junot Diaz, who was elected chairman of the board last month. Diaz was publicly confronted with misconduct allegations during a Q&A session at the Sydney Writers’ Festival last week, and several other accusations against him followed on Twitter. Writer Zinzi Clemmons alleged that Diaz forcibly kissed her when she was a graduate student, and two other writers accused him of misogyny and inappropriate behavior. Diaz, who won acclaim just weeks before the accusations became public for penning a New Yorker essay detailing his own sexual abuse as a child, has stepped down as chairman of the Pulitzer Prize Board and pledged to cooperate with the investigation.