Empress of the Splendid Season (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: Oscar Hijuelos
- First Published: 1999
- Type of Work: Novel
- Time of Work: The 1930’s to the 1990’s
- Setting: New York City, with brief flashbacks to Cuba
- Principal Characters: Lydia España, Raul España, Alicia España, Rico España, Don Antonio Colón, Mr. Osprey, Mrs. Osprey, Marie Osprey, Mr. Chang, Mireya Sanchez, Mario, Olivia D’az España, Wilfredo España, Eliseo Fernandez, Douglas Johnson, Susanah Morales, Daniela Rivera
- Genres: Long fiction
- Subjects: 1950’s, 1960’s, 1970’s, New York, North America or North Americans, Northeast, U.S., United States or Americans, Sex or sexuality, New York City, 1940’s, 1930’s, 1980’s, Migrant labor, Cuba or Cubans, 1990’s
- Locales: New York, NY, Cuba
In Empress of the Splendid Season, his fifth novel, Oscar Hijuelos continues exploring familiar territory: the lives of first- and second-generation Cuban Americans in New York City. This territory is familiar from his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love (1989) and draws on Hijuelos’s own New York background as the son of Cuban immigrant parents. Like his other works, Empress of the Splendid Season is a family saga that examines such subjects as love, sexuality, memory, identity, and longing. Cuban American music plays a role in the...
[The entire page is 2102 words long]
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