Oscar Hijuelos dies; first Hispanic writer to win a Pulitzer

Cuban-American writer, Oscar Hijuelos, Pulitzer Prize winner in 1990 for his novel “The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love”, died in Manhattan on Saturday, October 12, due to a heart attack while playing tennis, at 62 years old.

The book “The Mambo Kings”, which tells the story of two Cuban brothers who travel from Havana to New York to start an orchestra, won the Pulitzer Prize in the fiction category in 1990, turning  Hijuelos into the first Hispanic to win this recognition. The novel was adapted for the big screen and was starred by Armand Assante and Antonio Banderas.

Hijuelos was born and raised in New York City and his literary growth was influenced by Latin writers as Jose Lezama Lima, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Carlos Fuentes.