Oscar Jerome Hijuelos was an American novelist, born on August 24, 1951, in New York City, U.S. He was of Cuban descent. During a year-long convalescence from a childhood illness spent in a Connecticut hospital, he lost his knowledge of Spanish, his parents' native language. Educated in New York City, he initially wrote short stories and advertising copy.

Hijuelos became the first Hispanic to win a Pulitzer Prize for fiction with his second novel, The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, which was later adapted into the movie The Mambo Kings. His literary journey began with his first novel, Our House in the Last World, published in 1983, which received the 1985 Rome Prize, awarded by the American Academy in Rome.

Oscar Hijuelos passed away on October 12, 2013.