Oscar Hijuelos

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Oscar Jerome Hijuelos (August 24, 1951 – October 12, 2013) was an American novelist of Cuban descent.

During a year-long convalescence from a childhood illness spent in a Connecticut hospital he lost his knowledge of Spanish, his parents' native language.

He was educated in New York City, and wrote short stories and advertising copy. For his second novel, adapted for the movie The Mambo Kings, he became the first Hispanic to win a Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

Early life

Hijuelos was born in Morningside Heights, Manhattan, to Cuban immigrant parents, Pascual and Magdalena (Torrens) Hijuelos, both from Holguín, Cuba. His father worked as a hotel cook. As a young child, he suffered from acute nephritis after a vacation trip to Cuba with his mother and brother José, and was in St. Luke's Convalescent Hospital, Greenwich, Connecticut for almost a year, eventually recovering. During this long period separated from his Spanish-speaking family, he learned fluent English; he later wrote of this time: "I became estranged from the Spanish language and, therefore, my roots."

He attended Corpus Christi School in Morningside Heights, and public schools, and later Bronx Community College, Lehman College and Manhattan Community College. He studied writing at the City College of New York (B.A., 1975; M.A. in Creative Writing, 1976) under Donald Barthelme, Susan Sontag, William S. Burroughs, Frederic Tuten, and others. Barthelme became his mentor and friend. He practiced various professions, including working for an advertising agency, Transportation Displays Inc., before taking up writing full-time.

Personal life

Hijuelos' first marriage ended in divorce. He married writer and editor Lori Marie Carlson on December 12, 1998 in Manhattan.

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