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A Simple Habana Melody - Oscar Hijuelos & Arturo O'Farrill

By Oscar Hijuelos & Arturo O'Farrill

Release Date: 2025-02-11

Genre: Literary Fiction

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From a Pulitzer Prize-winning author comes a “masterpiece” about a composer returning to his beloved homeland after WWII (Kirkus, starred review).

The year is 1947. Israel Levis, a Cuban composer whose life once revolved around music and love, is finally returning home. En route to Habana, Cuba from Spain, he is a shadow of his former self, disillusioned after he was mistakenly sent to a camp during the Nazi occupation of France. In Habana, he escapes his anguish by reminiscing about his happiest moments before the war, when he lived a life of pleasure and excitement—and had a loving, if unrequited romance with Rita Valladares, the alluring singer who inspired Levis’s most famous composition, “Rosas Puras.”

A tender homage to music, art, and a vibrant country at the edge of modernity, A Simple Habana Melody is a virtuoso performance from one of America’s most talented writers.

Includes a reading group guide. 

A Simple Habana Melody - Oscar Hijuelos & Arturo O'Farrill

By Oscar Hijuelos & Arturo O'Farrill

Release Date: 2025-02-11

Genre: Literary Fiction

(0 ratings)
Read Download
From a Pulitzer Prize-winning author comes a “masterpiece” about a composer returning to his beloved homeland after WWII (Kirkus, starred review).

The year is 1947. Israel Levis, a Cuban composer whose life once revolved around music and love, is finally returning home. En route to Habana, Cuba from Spain, he is a shadow of his former self, disillusioned after he was mistakenly sent to a camp during the Nazi occupation of France. In Habana, he escapes his anguish by reminiscing about his happiest moments before the war, when he lived a life of pleasure and excitement—and had a loving, if unrequited romance with Rita Valladares, the alluring singer who inspired Levis’s most famous composition, “Rosas Puras.”

A tender homage to music, art, and a vibrant country at the edge of modernity, A Simple Habana Melody is a virtuoso performance from one of America’s most talented writers.

Includes a reading group guide. 

More by Oscar Hijuelos & Arturo O'Farrill

Twain & Stanley Enter Paradise

Dark Dude

Beautiful Maria of My Soul

Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love

Mr. Ives' Christmas

The Business of Writing

The Fourteen Sisters of Emilio Montez O'Brien

Our House in the Last World

A Simple Habana Melody

A Writing Marriage

Kaunis MarĂ­a

Empress of the Splendid Season

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