Thoughts without Cigarettes by Oscar Hijuelos

Thoughts without Cigarettes by Oscar Hijuelos

A beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist turns his pen to the real people and places that have influenced his life and literature. A comprehensive look into the mind of a writer.

Born in Manhattan's Morningside Heights to Cuban immigrants in 1951, Oscar Hijuelos introduces readers to the colorful circumstances of his upbringing. The son of a Cuban hotel worker and exuberant poetry-writing mother, his story, played out against the backdrop of a working-class neighborhood, takes on an even richer dimension when his relationship with his family and culture changes forever. During a sojourn with his mother in pre-Castro Cuba, he catches a disease that sends him into a Dickensian home for terminally ill children. The yearlong stay estranges him from the very language and people he had so loved.

With a cast of characters whose stories are both funny and tragic, Thoughts Without Cigarettes follows Hijuelos's subsequent quest for his true identity -- a mystery whose resolution he eventually discovers hidden away in the trappings of his fiction, and which finds its most glorious expression in his best-known book, The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love. Illuminating the most dazzling scenes from his novels, Thoughts Without Cigarettes reveals the true stories and indelible memories that shaped a literary genius.

Oscar Hijuelos was born in New York City in 1951 to Cuban parents. He has received numerous awards, including the Rome Prize, the Pulitzer Prize, and funds from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. Oscar Hijuelos was born in New York in 1951 to Cuban parents. His five previous novels have been translated into twenty-five languages. Ives' Christmas, The Fourteen Sisters of Emilio Montez O'Brien, Our Home in the Last World, and A Simple Havana Melody (Una Sencilla Meloda Habanera) are among his other works. New York, New York, New York, New York, New York, New York, New York, New York

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781592407187
ISBN 10	1592407188
Title	Thoughts without Cigarettes
Author	Oscar Hijuelos
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Penguin Putnam Inc
Year published	2012-06-05
Number of pages	384
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.