In Memoriam: Oscar Hijuelos and Gabriel Garcia Marquez

-

Oscar Hijuelos (photo by Dario Acosta)
(1951-2013)
When browsing the City University of New York alumni magazine, I learned of the sudden death of Pulitzer Prize winning author, Oscar Hijuelos at age 62 this past autumn.  Shocked and deeply saddened, I had looked forward with great anticipation to each new work from the Cuban-American author, whose mastery of language was intoxicating and whose storytelling dexterity was a reminder of the oral folkloric tradition of Latin American.  In my favorite of his novels, "The Fourteen Sisters of Emilio Montez O'Brien"  I recall Hijuelos describing the overwhelming feminine scent of the women in a small Pennsylvania house so overwhelmed a pilot that he is quite literally pulled from the sky to the ground below by his desire.  This piece of magical realism owes something to the master of that genre, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, but Hijuelos is no less adept at the technique.  Every Hijuelos book was a joyous read and I returned to many of them again and again.  Oscar Hijuelos gone too soon.

The Works of Oscar Hijuelos



Hijuelos won the Pulitzer Prize for this 1989 novel set in NYC in the 1950's


(1983) 


1993



1999


For Young Adults
2008
1995
Memoir - 2011


















2002


Sequel to Mambo Kings - 2010

Oscar Hijuelos Obituary - The New York Times
Yesterday, at age 87, Gabriel Garcia Marquez passed away.  His skills as a storyteller had been compared to 19th century greats like Dickens and Tolstoy in the depth, breadth and detail he gave each character, scene, setting.  Enthralling readers across the globe, his works transcended ethnicity, race and religion, yet his imagery and otherworldly creations were inherently Latin America south of the equator.  Marquez was not only a novelist, whose books became unlikely best-sellers (there was a time in the mid-1980's when every person I saw carried a copy of "Love in the Time of Cholera"), but a political journalist who reported on the military juntas who presided over the governments of much of Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s. Marquez went into exile, from his native Columbia, when his critical writings of the government placed him in danger of being imprisoned or worse.  Marquez left a great legacy of literature (fiction and non-fiction) if not creating magical realism, than becoming the maestro of the genre.  
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
(1927-2014)

(1967)



Novella  (1981)
Novella (2004)

(1989)
(1985)
(Quote from "Love in the Time of Cholera")



(1975)


 Non-Fiction (1996)   

 Non-Fiction (1986)

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Obituary for Gabriel Garcia Marquez - The New York Times




          

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

James Dean: Actor * Legend ∞ Icon

-
Image
In the early hours of the morning of February 8, 1931, 20-year-old Mildred Wilson Dean, married for the previous 7 months to Winton Dean a dental technician, gave birth, in the couple's tiny apartment in Marion, Indiana, to a healthy baby boy she named James Byron.  For his services, the doctor who delivered the baby was paid the sum of $15.  No one, except perhaps Mildred, could have possibly imagined the future that lay in store for this little boy. 55 years ago James Dean’s life ended in a car crash when his limited edition Porsche Spyder racing car (nicknamed “Little Bastard”) crashed into a Ford Sedan driven by 23-year-old Donald Turnupseed at the intersection of Routes 41 and 46, just outside the small town of Cholame, California.  Dean was heading to a car race in Salinas that afternoon with his friend and mechanic, Rolf Wutherich, in the two-seater Porsche purchased the week before at Competition Motors in L.A. Following Dean and Wutherich, in Dea...
Read more
-
Image
Beautiful Autumn at Home in New England Life has once again stepped in to waylay my plan to blog monthly.  With apologies, this current post is almost a month overdue.   Of the 4 books planned to read in October, I completed 3 and I declared a DNF on the 4th title.  I am not one who will DNF on a regular basis.  I am stubborn and almost always feel an obligation to finish what I start.  However, this strange holiday season, when sequestered at home, hearing reports of Covid-19 death tolls  rising hourly, I, like so many others, am already sad and anxious.  Taking on a read that will concentrate on the Israeli/Palestine conflict was more than I could manage.  "The Almond Tree" by Michelle Cohen Corasanti is a fictional account of one Palestinian family from the early 1950's to current times.  My DNF is no reflection on the quality of Ms. Corasanti's writing, merely the wrong book at this time.       Her Own Place ...
Read more

Book Blog Begins

-
Image
   I begin this blog with a disclosure – the opinions here are mine and mine alone, along with my prejudices, my preferences, my politics, my style, my education, knowledge and lack thereof, all of which are subject to change without warning.   I also bring a lifetime of loving to read which is likely to be inherent in my DNA and growing up surrounded by the printed word.   As a child (in the 1960’s and 1970’s) my favorites included Ferdinand the Bull & The Story of Ping : As well as all Robert McCloskey’s Books, but most especially his award winning classic Blueberries for Sal : I could name many more, but one remains especially close to my heart and that was Prince Bertam the Bad by Arnold Lobel .   Here it is in its Japanese edition - still looking approriately wicked.  Looking back this may have been where I first became attracted to bad boys: In grammar school, I discovered Beverly Cleary’s Ramona series and I doggedl...
Read more