Empress of the Splendid Season is Hijuelos's fifth published work. Two of his other works also focus on Cuban immigrants in postwar New York, The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love and Our House in the Last World. The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love won a Pulitzer Prize and has been made into a motion picture. It also deals with issues surrounding Cuban immigrants in America, by focusing on the true story of a man and his brother who for a brief time led the band the Mambo Kings and achieved fame by appearing on the television show, I Love Lucy. Here, the lead characters are musicians, and this story demonstrates even more prominently than Empress of the Splendid Season the role that music plays in the Cuban American community. He also has written introductions to a collection of Latino poetry and a collection of...