MIAMI, United States. – In 1990, Cuban-American writer Oscar Hijuelos (1951-2013) became the first Latino to win the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for a work of fiction.
Hijuelos was born in New York in 1951, the result of the marriage of Pascual Hijuelos and Magdalena Torrens, two Cuban immigrants, specifically from the province of Holguin. So the future writer grew up in a home where Cuban and Latino culture mixed with New York life, which profoundly influenced his literary work.
Hijuelos’s literary success came in 1989 with his second novel, The mambo kings play love songs. This play tells the story of two Cuban musician brothers who move to New York in the 1950s in search of success and opportunity. The novel received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1990.
The mambo kings play love songs It was made into a film in 1992 under the title The Mambo Kings, with Antonio Banderas and Armand Assante in the main roles. The film also contributed to spreading Cuban and Latino culture in the Hollywood film scene.
Throughout his career, Hijuelos published more than a dozen books, among which stand out The lady of Tacna (1990), the empress of my dreams (1999) and Twain & Stanley Enter Paradise (a manuscript published posthumously, in 2015). His works address themes such as identity, nostalgia, family and the search for the American dream. Hijuelos often showed the tensions and contradictions between Cuban traditions and life in the United States, as well as the desire to belong to both cultures.
Oscar Hijuelos passed away in 2013. In addition to the intrinsic literary values, his books capture the cultural richness of the Cuban and Latino community in the United States and particularly in New York City.
