March 2016 Book of the Month:
Twain & Stanley Enter Paradise by Oscar Hijuelos
March 2016: Oscar Hijuelos author of Twain & Stanley Enter Paradise published by Grand Central Publishing
About the Book:
Twain & Stanley Enter Paradise
By Oscar Hijuelos
Published by Grand Central Publishing
ISBN-13: 978-1455561490
Shortly before his sudden passing in October 2013, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Oscar Hijuelos completed a manuscript—Twain & Stanley Enter Paradise—a piece of work that was a true labor of love. Fascinated by the long-standing friendship between two prominent figures of the late Nineteenth Century, famed writer and humorist Mark Twain and legendary explorer Sir Henry Morton Stanley, Hijuelos worked on the project for over a decade. Twain & Stanley Enter Paradise: A Novel follows these two vibrant figures from their first meeting on the Mississippi River, through their support of each other’s writing, their mutual hatred of slavery, their social life together in the dazzling literary circles of the period and a fictitious journey to Cuba to search for Stanley’s adoptive father. It is also a study of Twain’s complex relationship with Mrs. Stanley, the bohemian portrait artist Dorothy Tennant, who introduces Twain and his wife to the world of séances and mediums after the tragic death of their daughter. Blending imagined correspondence, memoir, and third-person omniscience, Hijuelos has written a piece of literary fiction that is both unique and brilliant.
About the Author:
Oscar Hijuelos
Oscar Hijuelos (1951-2013), was a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and recipient of the Rome Prize. He also received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. His nine novels have been translated into more than 30 languages.
About the Speaker:
Photo Credit: Marion Ettlinger
Lori Marie Carlson Hijuelos
Lori Marie Carlson Hijuelos is the widow of Oscar Hijuelos who died in 2013. Lori Marie Carlson was born in Jamestown, New York. She earned her Master of Arts in Hispanic literature at her college, Indiana University and has taught at several universities, including currently at Duke University. Carlson has written several books for children and young adults, including Cool Salsa and Sol a Sol. The Sunday Tertulia was her first novel for adults. With her husband, Ms. Carlson, a best-selling translator, assembled and translated a collection of modern Cuban poems that they considered most representative of what it means to be Cuban. The collection, Burnt Sugar/Caña Quemada: Contemporary Cuban Poetry, Translations and the Originals, includes the poets Severo Sarduy, Heberto Padilla, Angel Cuadra, Fayad Jamis, Rita Geada, José Kozer, Emilio Ballagas and many more. Many of these poems had never been translated into English and, together they “produce a vibrant, satisfying sound and vivid imagery.” Ms. Carlson translated and edited bilingual collections, such as Red Hot Salsa: Being Young and Latino in the United States (2005) and Cool Salsa (1994).