Hijuelos, Oscar

(US, 1951– )

Hijuelos was the son of Cuban immigrants, and was born and brought up in New York. After working briefly in advertising, he began writing novels, and he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1990 for The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love (1989). This is the story of two young 1950s’ Cuban musicians who eventually find success in New York. The novel is remarkable for the detailed, sympathetic portrait of the brothers, Cesar and Nestor, and the authentic period background. All Hijuelos's novels concern themselves with the Latino experience, such as The Fourteen Sisters of Emilio Montez O'Brien (1993), which follows a huge Cuban-American family over a century, and the moving Mr Ives’ Christmas (1995) about a devout Catholic whose faith is tested when his son is shot at Christmas.

Gabriel García Márquez, Isabel Allende  SA