Hijuelos, << ee HWAY lohs, >> Oscar (1951-2013), was an American author who gained fame for his novels about his Cuban heritage. Most of Hijuelos’s stories explore how people of Cuban background struggle to adjust to life in the United States. His books often feature a narrative technique known as magic realism, which blends dreams and magic with everyday realism. Hijuelos won the 1990 Pulitzer Prize for fiction for his second novel, The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love (1989). He was the first Hispanic American to win a Pulitzer Prize.
In The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, Hijuelos tells the story of two brothers, Cesar and Nestor Castillo, who leave Cuba to establish careers as singers in the Spanish Harlem area of New York City in the 1950’s. The story traces the brothers’ rise to popularity and ultimate decline. Hijuelos wrote a sequel, Beautiful Maria of My Soul (2010).
Hijuelos’s first novel was Our House in the Last World (1983). It deals with a family who leaves Cuba for Spanish Harlem in the 1940’s and tries to balance the values of their homeland with the difficulties of living in the United States. His other books include The Fourteen Sisters of Emilio Montez O’Brien (1993), Mr. Ives’ Christmas (1995), Empress of the Splendid Season (1999), A Simple Habana Melody: From When the World Was Good (2002), and Dark Dude (2008). His historical novel Twain and Stanley Enter Paradise was published in 2015, after his death.
Hijuelos was born on Aug. 24, 1951, in New York City to Cuban-born parents. He attended City College of the City University of New York, earning a B.A. degree in 1975 and an M.A. degree in 1976. Hijuelos worked in advertising from 1977 until he became a full-time writer in 1984. Hijuelos died on Oct. 12, 2013.
