Mambo Kings

When it was first published in 1989, “The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love” became an international bestselling sensation, winning rave reviews. To celebrate its 20th anniversary, the award-winning novel that changed the landscape of American literature returns with a new afterword by Oscar Hijuelos. Here is the story of the memorable Castillo brothers, from Havana to New York's Upper West Side. The lovelorn songwriter Nestor and his macho brother Cesar find success in the city's dance halls and beyond playing the rhythms that earn them their band's name, as they struggle with elusive fame and lost love in a richly sensual tale that has become a cultural touchstone and an enduring favorite.

In Beautiful María of My Soul, Oscar Hijuelos returns to the passionate tale he began twenty years ago in The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love. María is the great Cuban beauty who stole musician Nestor Castillo's heart and broke it, inspiring him to write the Mambo Kings' biggest hit, "Beautiful María of My Soul.'" Now in her sixties and living as an exile in Miami, María remains a beauty, still capable of turning heads. But while she left Cuba decades ago, she has never forgotten Nestor. As she thinks back to her days--and nights--in Havana, an entirely new perspective on the Mambo Kings story unfolds. Beautiful María of My Soul is a stunning act of reinvention, and another contemporary classic from an extraordinarily talented writer.