A Simple Habana Melody: (from when the world was good)

HIJUELOS, OSCAR

Literature & Fiction

HarperAudio

A moving work from a Pulitzer Prize-winning author concerns the loss of faith endured by Mr. Ives, a businessman whose world is shattered when his son, who is studying for the priesthood, violently dies at Christmas. 100,000 first printing. $125,000 ad/promo. Tour.

Mr. Ives' Christmas

United States

HARPER/COLLINS

It is 1947 and Israel Levis, a Cuban composer whose life had once been a dream of music, love and sadness, is returning to Habana, Cuba, from Spain, where he has just recovered from the physical and spiritual malaise resulting from his experiences in Paris, then Buchenwald, during the Nazi occupation of France. (A devout Catholic, Levis had been mistakenly identified as a Jew because of his name.)
When Levis arrives back in Habana, after an absence of many years, his mind is reeling with beautiful memories of his life in Cuba and in Paris before the war, a life of pleasure and excitement that he owes, in part, to an unrequited, nearly "chivalrous" romance with a certain Rita Valladares, a singer for whom Levis had written his most famous song, "Rosas Puras," or "Pretty Roses." This 1928 composition becomes the most famous rumba in the world and changes both American and European tastes in music and dance -- forever; and it is the song, symbolic of the composer's love for Rita Valladares, that sets Levis's life in Europe in motion.
This is at once a love story -- for art, family and country -- as well as a portrait of Habana at the turn of the last century, when "the world was good." A Simple Habana Melody is a virtuoso performance from one of our most important writers.

HarperCol

Empress of the Splendid Season

Through four novels in the last decade, Oscar Hijuelos has produced a body of work that is without rival in contemporary literature, both in the lush, incantatory rhythms of his extraordinary prose and in his profound and heartfelt vision. In his transcendent new novel, Hijuelos tells the story of Lydia Espana, a beautiful and formerly prosperous é'migré from pre-Castro Cuba, who becomes a cleaning lady in New York. Once the spoiled, pampered daughter of a small-town mayor and adored by men--a "queen of the Congo line"--she is forced because of a youthful sexual indiscretion to leave home and, in 1947, finds herself suddenly living the life of a working poor. In time she falls in love with Raul, a humble waiter. One night in a Manhattan ballroom, in the middle of a bolero, Raul purposes marriage, for Lydia is his "empress of the most beautiful and splendid season, which is love." 
 A life of promise is disrupted when Raul falls ill and Lydia, finding employment as a domestic, becomes the head of the family. Striving to educate her town children, Rico and Alicia, in the style of the upper class, she must endure a lesson in humanity, cleaning the homes of New Yorkers much better off than herself. Among her employers is Mr. Osprey, a reserved and kindly lawyer, who eventuality takes an interest in her family's well-being and, during the turmoil of the 1960s, intervenes at a critical juncture in the life of her teenage son, Rico. Throughout this novel Lydia remains a sensual and powerful woman who meets the trails of a lonely life with humor and a gleam of triumph in her eye--a sense that she is someone special--an empress of fortitude, of dignity. 
 Hijuelo's genius for evoking the heart and soul of his characters has never been more vivid, moving, and impassioned than in Empress of the Splendid Season. A master of eloquent detail, Hijuelos allows Lydia to open up, alive and vibrant on the page. No one writes better of love or the pulse of the city. And no one has better captured the complexity of what happens to generations of people who come to America: how assimilation ius at once the achievement of dreams and yet, sometimes, a loss of what has rooted us to the past. 
 Lydia, I am to you, as a sparrow adoring the sky; 
 Lydia, you are as the moon reflecting upon the water, 
 which is my soul; 
 Lydia, you are the queen of beauty, 
 the Empress of my love, 
 and you preside over the splendidness of my feelings for you, 
 like the morning sun on the most glorious day 
 of the most beautiful and splendid season, 
 which is love... -- Raul Espana to his future wife on the night he proposed marriage, 1949, from Empress of the Splendid Season

Harper Flamingo

Corre el año 1947, e Israel Levis―un compositor cubano cuya vida había sido un ensueño de música, amor y tristeza―regresa a Cuba después de haber sido equivocadamente encarcelado durante la ocupación nazista de Francia. Cuando Levis regresa a La Habana, su mente vuelve al pasado al recordar su amor no correspondido por la hechizante Rita Valladares, una cantante para quien Levis había escrito su canción más famosa, ""Rosas Puras."" Esta composición que data de 1928, se convirtió en la rumba más célebre del mundo, y cambió para siempre el gusto por la música y el baile. Una historia de amor por el arte, la familia y la patria, Una Sen-cilla Melodía Habanera es una actuación de virtuosismo por parte de uno de nuestros más importantes escritores.

Una Sencilla Melodia Habanera (Spanish Edition)

World Literature

Rayo

It's 1949, the era of the mambo, and two young Cuban musicians make their way from Havana to New York. The Castillo brothers, workers by day, become, by night, stars of the dance halls, where their orchestra plays the sensuous, pulsing music that earns them the title of the Mambo Kings. This is a golden time that thirty years later will be remembered with deep affection. In The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, Oscar Hijuelos has created an enthralling novel about passion and loss, memory and desire.This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.

Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, The tie-in

HarpPerenM

"Enthralling...A life-affirming novel, a worthy successor to Dickens." — Philadelphia Inquirer
“Stunning....a triumph...with an honesty at its core that seems almost shocking in this day and age.” — Boston Globe
A beautifully written, tender and passionate story of a man trying to put his life in perspective. In the expert hands of Oscar Hijuelos, Mr. Ives’ Christmas speaks eloquently to the most basic and fulfilling aspects of life for all of us.
Mr. Ives has a successful career in advertising, a wife and two children, and believes he has achieved the typical American dream. But the dream is shattered when his son Robert, who is studying for the priesthood, is killed at Christmas. Overwhelmed by grief and threatened by a loss of faith in humankind, Mr. Ives begins to question the very foundations of his life. 
Part love story—of a man for his wife, for his children, for God—and part meditation on how a person can find spiritual peace in the midst of crisis, Mr. Ives’s Christmas "is a magnificently sad and enchanting novel, a celebration, ultimately, of giving and of grace." (Booklist)

Harper-perennial

This title tells the story of Mr Ives, who was adopted from a foundling home as a child. He is first seen in his 50s, very much a product of his times. He has a successful career, a wife and two children. But his dreams are shattered after his son is killed violently over Christmas.

HarperCollins, Publishers

It is 1947, and Israel Levis, a Cuban composer whose life had once been a dream of music, love, and sadness, returns to Cuba after being mistakenly imprisoned during the Nazi occupation of France. When Levis arrives back in Habana, his mind returns to an unrequited romance with the alluring Rita Valladares, a singer for whom Levis had written his most famous song, "Rosas Puras." This 1928 composition became the most famous rumba in the world and changed American and European tastes in music and dance forever. A love story - of art, family, and country - A Simple Habana Melody is a virtuoso performance from one of our most important writers.

A Simple Habana Melody

Literary

Oscar Hijuelos vividly brings to life the joys, desires, and disappointment of American life witnessed through the experience of a formerly prosperous Cuban émigré named Lydia Espana—now a cleaning woman in New York. In magnetic prose, he juxtaposes Lydia's tale with the stories of her clients, contrasting her experiences with the secret lives of those for whom she works. No one writes better of love or the pulse of a city, nor has any writer better captured the complexity inherent in the emigration experience; how assimilation is at once the achievement of dreams, yet also a loss of the past. Empress of the Splendid Season is Hijuelos at his masterful best, a novel filled with incantatory, rhythmic prose and rich in heartfelt vision.

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Books by HIJUELOS, OSCAR

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by HIJUELOS, OSCAR. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

A Simple Habana Melody: (from when the world was good)

Mr. Ives' Christmas

A Simple Habana Melody: (from when the world was good)

Empress of the Splendid Season

Una Sencilla Melodia Habanera (Spanish Edition)

Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, The tie-in

Mr. Ives' Christmas

Mr. Ives' Christmas

A Simple Habana Melody

Empress of the Splendid Season