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.

[8] 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.

[6] 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.

[11] Michiko Kakutani, reviewing the novel for The New York Times, describes it as "essentially elegiac in tone — a Chekhovian lament for a life of missed connections and misplaced dreams.

[11] Bruce Weber, writing in the New York Times, described his style as "fluid prose, sonorous but more earthy than poetic, with a forthright American cadence.

"[8] When "Beautiful Maria of My Soul" was published, he corresponded with author Tom Miller: "I did this reading at Union Square B&N [Barnes & Noble] the other night, with a friend of mine providing music-- it kind of worked pretty well -- but it so happens that I mentioned your book, 'Trading with the Enemy'-- in the context of how charmed I was by the fact that you were carrying MKs ['The Mambo Kings'] with you while traveling through Cuba and that you had met a few folks somewhere (in Santiago?)

In any event, the fact that some folks really believe that the MKs had been around, sort of led me, in a very roundabout way, to the notion that a real Maria has existed all along...."[13] Oscar Hijuelos' Papers are located at Columbia University Libraries.

[14][15] In addition to the 1990 Pulitzer Prize, Hijuelos received an Ingram Merrill Foundation Award in 1983, the year he published his first novel, Our House in the Last World.