Oscar Hijuelos
Oscar Hijuelos was a Cuban-American author known for his exploration of identity, family dynamics, and the immigrant experience in his writing. Born in New York City to Cuban parents, Hijuelos's early life was marked by contrasts, including exposure to both an academic environment and a challenging neighborhood. His profound experiences of separation and isolation, particularly during a lengthy illness in childhood, influenced the themes prevalent in his novels.
Hijuelos gained significant recognition with his debut novel, *Our House in the Last World*, which reflects on his family's exodus from Cuba and complex familial relationships. However, he is perhaps best known for *The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love*, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1990, making him the first Hispanic author to receive this honor. The narrative intertwines the lives of two brothers navigating their aspirations in America, enriched by the cultural backdrop of Cuban music.
His later works, such as *The Fourteen Sisters of Emilio Montez O’Brien* and *Mr. Ives' Christmas*, continued to examine cross-cultural themes and familial bonds. Hijuelos's literature has been recognized for its significant contributions to Latino American identity, despite his tendency to steer clear of overt political themes. He passed away in 2013 at the age of sixty-two, leaving behind a legacy that continues to resonate in discussions of immigrant narratives and cultural identity.
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Subject Terms
Oscar Hijuelos
Author
- Born: August 24, 1951
- Birthplace: New York, New York
- Died: October 12, 2013
Author Profile
Oscar Hijuelos’ family came from the Oriente province of Cuba and settled in New York City. Hijuelos was reared amid two divergent worlds: that of Columbia University, teeming with scholars, and that of Morningside Park, overflowing with drug addicts and muggers. At age four, Hijuelos and his mother visited Cuba, and upon his return, he succumbed to nephritis. Bedridden, Hijuelos lingered in a hospital for two years, disconnected from the Hispanic community. The themes of separation and isolation, especially from family, that he experienced would go on to saturate Hijuelos’ novels. He became further alienated from his parents because he spoke English, while they expected the family to speak Spanish. His father's hard drinking and the general poverty of his neighborhood further contributed to his difficult childhood.
After receiving his master’s degree in 1976 from the City University of New York, Hijuelos moved to within a few blocks of his childhood home to begin his life as an author, supported by a menial job in an advertising agency. His first novel, Our House in the Last World, was published in 1983 and immediately won critical praise, winning the Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Our House in the Last World is a portrait of his family’s exodus from Cuba. The work recalls Hijuelos’ family relationships; he hated and loved his alcoholic father, and he misunderstood and miscommunicated with his mother. His next and best-known novel, The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, also recalls Hijuelos’ family life. One of Hijuelos’ uncles had been a musician with Cuban bandleader Xavier Cugat, while the elevator operator in Hijuelos’ building also played music. Hijuelos jumbled these two characters into Cesar Castillo. Cesar and his brother Nestor reach the highest point in their lives when the Mambo Kings appear on the I Love Lucy television show. The challenges the brothers face encapsulate the experience of many American immigrants, tied together with the rich music of Cuban Americans. The book was again highly acclaimed, and went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1990—a first for a Hispanic author. It was adapted into a film in 1990, starring Armand Assante and Antonio Banderas, and later into a musical.
In The Fourteen Sisters of Emilio Montez O’Brien (1993), Hijuelos addresses issues of cross-cultural identity with the connection of Cuban and Irish families in a marriage. In Mr. Ives’ Christmas (1995), Hijuelos examines father-son relationships from the father’s perspective. Mr. Ives seeks penance and peace after the disaster of his son’s murder. His later works include Empress of the Splendid Season (1999), Dark Dude (2008), and Beautiful María of My Soul (2010). His writing is seen as an important contribution to Latino American identity in literature despite his general avoidance of political themes espoused by many of those considered representative of Latino culture.
Hijuelos died of a heart attack in Manhattan, New York, at the age of sixty-two on October 12, 2013, while playing tennis.
Bibliography
Barbato, Joseph. “Latino Writers in the American Market.” Publishers Weekly 1 February 1991: 17–21. Print.
Chávez, Lydia. “Cuban Riffs: Songs of Love.” Los Angeles Times Magazine 18 April 1993: 22–28. Print.
Patteson, Richard F. “Oscar Hijuelos: ‘Eternal Homesickness’ and the Music of Memory.” Critique 44.1 (2002): 38-48. Print.
Pérez-Firmat, Gustavo. Life on the Hyphen: The Cuban-American Way. Austin: U of Texas P, 1994. Print.
Shirley, Paula W. “Reading Desi Arnaz in The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love.” Melus 20 (1995): 69–78. Print.
Shorris, Earl. Latinos: A Biography of the People. 1992. Reprint. New York: Norton, 2001. Print.
Silber, Joan. “Fiction in Review.” The Yale Review 84.4 (1996): 151–157. Print.
Socolovsky, Maya. “The Homelessness of Immigrant American Ghosts: Hauntings and Photographic Narrative in Oscar Hijuelos’s The Fourteen Sisters of Emilio Montez O’Brien.” Proceedings of the Modern Language Association 117.2 (2002): 252–264. Print.