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Our House in the Last World

Published
Jun 1992
Main Genre
General Fiction General Fiction
Rating
Pages
240

About This Book

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.

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Paperback

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First Edition Jun 1992 Penguin ISBN 0140165185
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May 1983 Persea Books ISBN 0892552832
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Oct 1990 Washington Square Press ISBN 0671727222
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Oct 1991 George Braziller ISBN 0892551658
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Dec 2017 Persea Books ISBN 0892554843
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Apr 2024 Grand Central ISBN 1538722259
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Hardcover

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May 1983 Persea Books ISBN 089255374X
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Nov 1989 Persea Books ISBN 0892550694
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eBook

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Nov 2013 RosettaBooks ISBN 0795337523
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Nov 2013 ROSETTABOOKS LLC ISBN B00GWLIAKS
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Apr 2024 Grand Central ISBN 1538722267
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Audio

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Apr 2024 -- Not Selected ISBN B0CD2LCNVX
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