A SIMPLE HABANA MELODY (from when the world was good)

Hijuelos, Oscar

ISBN 10: 0060175699 / ISBN 13: 9780060175696

Published by HarperCollins. NY., 2002

About this Item

Book size about 6 1/2 by 9 1/2 inches with some 342 pages. Bound in cream and rust paper over boards with metallic green spine lettering. Fore-edge untrimmed. In the original dust wrapper with a front flap price of $24.95. Wrapper enclosed in a removable clear plastic protector. SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR ON THE TITLE PAGE. Book and wrapper with the slightest of wear. FINE/FINE.

Seller Inventory # 16354

Bibliographic Details

• Title: A SIMPLE HABANA MELODY (from when the world was good)
• Publisher: HarperCollins. NY.
• Publication Date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0060175699
• ISBN 13: 9780060175696
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition.
• Condition: Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Fine
• Signed: Signed by Author
• Seller catalogs:
  • FICTION

About this title

Synopsis

It is 1947 and Israel Levis, a Cuban composer whose life had once been a dream of music, love and sadness, is returning to Habana, Cuba, from Spain, where he has just recovered from the physical and spiritual malaise resulting from his experiences in Paris, then Buchenwald, during the Nazi occupation of France. (A devout Catholic, Levis had been mistakenly identified as a Jew because of his name.)

When Levis arrives back in Habana, after an absence of many years, his mind is reeling with beautiful memories of his life in Cuba and in Paris before the war, a life of pleasure and excitement that he owes, in part, to an unrequited, nearly "chivalrous" romance with a certain Rita Valladares, a singer for whom Levis had written his most famous song, "Rosas Puras," or "Pretty Roses." This 1928 composition becomes the most famous rumba in the world and changes both American and European tastes in music and dance -- forever; and it is the song, symbolic of the composer's love for Rita Valladares, that sets Levis's life in Europe in motion.

This is at once a love story -- for art, family and country -- as well as a portrait of Habana at the turn of the last century, when "the world was good." A Simple Habana Melody is a virtuoso performance from one of our most important writers.

About the Author

Oscar Hijuelos was born of Cuban parentage in New York City in 1951. He is a recipient of the Rome Prize, the Pulitzer Prize, and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation, among others. His five previous novels have been translated into twenty-five languages.

Oscar Hijuelos nació de padres cubanos en Nueva York en 1951. Sus otras novelas incluyen Mr. Ives' Christmas, The Fourteen Sisters of Emilio Montez O'Brien, Our House in the Last World y A Simple Havana Melody (Una Sencilla Melodía Habanera). Vive en Nueva York.