A first-generation Cuban son comes of age in the debut––and most autobiographical––novel by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love. Winner of the Ingram Merrill Foundation Award and the Rome Prize Hector Santinio is the younger son of Alejo and Mercedes, who moved to New York from Cuba in the mid-1940s. The family of four shares their modest apartment with extended relatives in Harlem, where homesickness and nostalgia are dispelled by nights of dancing and raucous parties. But life’s realities are nevertheless harsh in the Santinio family’s adoptive land. When Mercedes takes Hector and his brother to visit Cuba, to better know her culture, Hector contracts a serious illness that leads to a terrifying period of hospitalization back in the United States where, isolated from his family, he loses much of his ability to speak Spanish. And it is this fracturing that sparks a lifelong quest to not only reconcile his Cuban identity with his American one, but to also understand his parents’ ambitions and anxieties within the country at large. In this profoundly moving account of immigrant life, Oscar Hijuelos displays, once again, his mastery over both character and language—and sets readers on an unforgettable journey of hope, longing, and self-discovery. Includes a Reading Group Guide.

A first-generation Cuban son comes of age in the debut––and most autobiographical––novel by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love. Winner of the Ingram Merrill Foundation Award and the Rome Prize Hector Santinio is the younger son of Alejo and Mercedes, who moved to New York from Cuba in the mid-1940s. The family of four shares their modest apartment with extended relatives in Harlem, where homesickness and nostalgia are dispelled by nights of dancing and raucous parties. But life’s realities are nevertheless harsh in the Santinio family’s adoptive land. When Mercedes takes Hector and his brother to visit Cuba, to better know her culture, Hector contracts a serious illness that leads to a terrifying period of hospitalization back in the United States where, isolated from his family, he loses much of his ability to speak Spanish. And it is this fracturing that sparks a lifelong quest to not only reconcile his Cuban identity with his American one, but to also understand his parents’ ambitions and anxieties within the country at large. In this profoundly moving account of immigrant life, Oscar Hijuelos displays, once again, his mastery over both character and language—and sets readers on an unforgettable journey of hope, longing, and self-discovery. Includes a Reading Group Guide.

Follows a family through seasons and generations as the house to which their immigrant grandparents came is transformed into a home.

DON'T MISS THE ORIGINAL SERIES—NOW AVAILABLE ON PBS! A disturbing and addictive novel of domestic suspense from an internationally bestselling author, where secrets kept hidden from spouses cause shocking surprises that hit home... There's nothing unusual about a new family moving in at 91 Trinity Avenue. Except it's her house. And she didn't sell it. Fiona Lawson is sure there's been a mistake when she comes home to find strangers moving into her house. She and her estranged husband, Bram, have a modern coparenting arrangement: bird's nest custody, where each parent spends a few nights a week with their two sons at the prized family home to maintain stability for their children. But the system built to protect their family ends up putting them in terrible jeopardy. In a domino effect of crimes and misdemeanors, the nest comes tumbling down. Now Bram has disappeared, and so have Fiona's children. As events spiral well beyond her control, Fiona will discover just how many lies her husband was weaving and how little they truly know each other. Bram's not the only one with things to hide, though, and some secrets are best kept to oneself, safe as houses. One of The Washington Post's 10 Best Thrillers and Mysteries of the Year One of Publishers Weekly's Best Books of the Year One of Real Simple's Best Books of the Year

An expanded, updated edition of the classic study of Cuban-American culture, this engaging book, which mixes the author’s own story with his reflections as a trained observer, explores how both famous and ordinary members of the “1.5 Generation” (Cubans who came to the United States as children or teens) have lived “life on the hyphen”—neither fully Cuban nor fully American, but a fertile hybrid of both. Offering an in-depth look at Cuban-Americans who have become icons of popular and literary culture—including Desi Arnaz, Oscar Hijuelos, musician Pérez Prado, and crossover pop star Gloria Estefan, as well as poets José Kozer and Orlando González Esteva, performers Willy Chirino and Carlos Oliva, painter Humberto Calzada, and others—Gustavo Pérez Firmat chronicles what it means to be Cuban in America. The first edition of Life on the Hyphen won the Eugene M. Kayden National University Press Book Award and received honorable mentions for the Modern Language Association’s Katherine Singer Kovacs Prize and the Latin American Studies Association’s Bryce Wood Book Award.

After critiquing—and infuriating—the art world with The Painted Word, award-winning author Tom Wolfe shared his less than favorable thoughts about modern architecture in From Bauhaus to Our Haus. In this examination of the strange saga of twentieth century architecture, Wolfe takes such European architects as Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, and Bauhaus art school founder Walter Gropius to task for their glass and steel box designed buildings that have influenced—and infected—America’s cities.

"Nearly every page has some crack piece of travel wisdom ... an accessible, inspiring journey." —Kirkus The Sell-Your-House, See-the-World Life! Reunited after thirty-five years and wrestling a serious case of wanderlust, Lynne and Tim Martin decided to sell their house and possessions and live abroad full-time. They've never looked back. With just two suitcases, two computers, and each other, the Martins embark on a global adventure, taking readers from sky-high pyramids in Mexico to Turkish bazaars to learning the contact sport of Italian grocery shopping. But even as they embrace their new home-free lifestyle, the Martins grapple with its challenges, including hilarious language barriers, finding financial stability, and missing the family they left behind. Together, they learn how to live a life—and love—without borders. Recently featured on NPR's Here and Now and in the New York Times, Home Sweet Anywhere is a road map for anyone who dreams of turning the idea of life abroad into a reality.

Learn the story of TIME PERSON OF THE YEAR Greta Thunberg, the sixteen-year-old climate activist who has sparked a worldwide student movent and is demanding action from world leaders who refuse to address climate change—from acclaimed picture book creator Jeanette Winter. I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic…I want you to act as if our house is on fire. Because it is. When she was fifteen years old, Greta Thunberg’s teacher explained to her class that our climate is changing—the earth is getting warmer, the polar ice caps are melting, and life on earth is threatened. Greta was devastated. What could she do? If the grown-ups weren’t doing enough to save the planet, Greta would have to demand change herself. So she went on strike, skipping school every Friday to sit outside of the Swedish Parliament building with a sign that read “School Strike for Climate.” At first, Greta was the only one. But gradually, more and more students joined her, until her lone protest had sparked a worldwide student movement for action on climate change. Now, a year later, Greta is speaking to audiences of world leaders at important meetings like the United Nations Climate Conference and the World Economic Forum. She is leading the conversation on climate change and sparking worldwide conversation on how to save our planet. Greta is showing everyone that even the smallest person can make a big difference, and this picture book informs and inspires young readers who are beginning to learn about the world around them.

How does a man serving in the Imperial Japanese Army feel when he suddenly sees his brother in the uniform of the enemy United States? How does a Japanese mother, surrounded by barbed wire in an American internment camp for "enemy aliens," feel when her only son writes: "I am now an American soldier. I must fight and, if necessary, die for my country"? How does a Hawaii-born youth feel as he lies near death in Hiroshima, a victim of history's first nuclear attack, launched by the United States? Or a twelve-year-old girl on a sugar plantation, whose ailing father returned to the place of his birth just a month earlier, on the morning she hears that "yellow Japs" have attacked? These are among the moments of excruciating confrontation experienced by Japanese American families, divided geographically and politically between Japan and Hawaii when the Peacific War exploded at Pearl Harbor. Our House Divided focuses on seven personal stories of such families as they struggled with the emotions and events brought on by the war--stories of the dilemma of first-generation Japanese Americans who were strongly attached both to the contry of their birth, and to the land where they had spent most of their lives and raised children in communities they had helped to build; and stories of the dilemma of second-generation Japanese Americans, whose loyalty to the United States was questioned even though they were American citizens. That these citizens turned that distrust into national respect through their celebrated achievements is also part of the poignant story. Our House Divided, an inward journey for the author, will open the eyes and hearts of many readers who have roots in more than one country and culture. Foreword by A. A. "Bud" Smyser

The rapprochement of anthropology and literary studies, begun nearly fifteen years ago by such pioneering scholars as Clifford Geertz, Edward Said, and James Clifford, has led not only to the creation of the new scholarly domain of cultural studies but to the deepening and widening of both original fields. Literary critics have learned to "anthropologize" their studies—to ask questions about the construction of meanings under historical conditions and reflect on cultural "situatedness." Anthropologists have discovered narratives other than the master narratives of disciplinary social science that need to be drawn on to compose ethnographies. Culture/Contexture brings together for the first time literature and anthropology scholars to reflect on the antidisciplinary urge that has made the creative borrowing between their two fields both possible and necessary. Critically expanding on such pathbreaking works as James Clifford and George Marcus's Writing Culture and Marcus and Michael M. J. Fischer's Anthropology as Cultural Critique, contributors explore the fascination that draws the disciplines together and the fears that keep them apart. Their topics demonstrate the rich intersection of anthropology and literary studies, ranging from reading and race to writing and representation, incest and violence, and travel and time. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1996.