Thoughts without Cigarettes: A Memoir - Tapa blanda

"In "Thoughts Without Cigarettes", a brilliant novelist reveals what makes him tick and where he and all his characters have come from, offering us a mesmerizing glimpse of that mystical realm where the grittiest of realities are transformed into art and memories are redeemed."
--Carlos Eire, author of "Waiting for Snow in Havana"
"Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Hijuelos proves himself again with his autobiography... Readers who enjoyed Hijuelos' novels will enjoy his memoir, a revelation of the personal sources of most of his fiction."
--"Library Journal"

"In "Thoughts Without Cigarettes", Hijuelos revisits Oscar the child, the adolescent, the man, and finally the writer, in self-effacing, humorous, and sometimes heartbreaking moments that remind us why he's one of our most treasured contemporary authors."
--Esmeralda Santiago, author of "Conquistadora "and "When I Was Puerto Rican"

"Oscar Hijuelos looks back at his own life, and brings the same fine-grained detail, and prodigious powers of observation that mark his novels. He spares no one, least of all himself, in taking us from the isolation of a sick little boy to the success of a novelist just breaking big on the national scene. Oscar introduces us to great characters--including himself--and a great city during challenging times. That "Thoughts Without Cigarettes" reads like a novel will come as no surprise to Hijuelos fans."
--Ray Suarez, Senior Correspondent, "PBS Newshour
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"In this memoir Oscar Hijuelos achieves the miracle of transforming ordinary daily events into extraordinary happenings while recovering the lost time of childhood. He shines a light on the traumatic experience of being a Cuban forced to abandon his native language before becoming an American writer, a process which ironically draws him back to his roots."
--Jose Miguel Oviedo

A beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist turns his pen to the real people and places that have influenced his life and literature.  A comprehensive look into the mind of a writer.

Born in Manhattan’s Morningside Heights to Cuban immigrants in 1951, Oscar Hijuelos introduces readers to the colorful circumstances of his upbringing. The son of a Cuban hotel worker and exuberant poetry-writing mother, his story, played out against the backdrop of a working-class neighborhood, takes on an even richer dimension when his relationship with his family and culture changes forever. During a sojourn with his mother in pre-Castro Cuba, he catches a disease that sends him into a Dickensian home for terminally ill children. The yearlong stay estranges him from the very language and people he had so loved.

With a cast of characters whose stories are both funny and tragic, Thoughts Without Cigarettes follows Hijuelos's subsequent quest for his true identity — a mystery whose resolution he eventually discovers hidden away in the trappings of his fiction, and which finds its most glorious expression in his best-known book,The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love. Illuminating the most dazzling scenes from his novels, Thoughts Without Cigarettes reveals the true stories and indelible memories that shaped a literary genius.