Mambo in Double Time: The Beat Goes On

En español | Cuban American writer Oscar Hijuelos, 58, underestimated his mileage as a writer when, 20 years ago, he claimed to have only seven novels in him. "I made that comment when I was younger and never thought about the future and getting older, which sneaks up on you like a thief," he said in an exclusive interview with AARP VIVA. Not counting the three unpublished novels he's hurled into fireplaces, his latest, Beautiful Maria of My Soul, is his eighth, and returns to the story played out in his second novel, the 1990 Pulitzer Prize-winning The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love. This time, though, he tells the tale from heroine María's point of view. … Back to Article