In a small town in rural Pennsylvania, Irish photographer Nelson O’Brien and Cuban poet Mariela Montez raise fourteen daughters and one son. In The Fourteen Sisters of Emilio Montez O’Brien, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Oscar Hijuelos introduces the dynamic Montez O’Brien family—half Irish, half Cuban, and wholly memorable. Told through the eyes of the oldest daughter, Margarita, the intricate relationships, intense passions, griefs and joys of a complex and dynamic cast of characters come to life in a novel that’s both exuberant and lyrical.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The child of Cuban immigrants, Oscar Hijuelos (1951–2013) was an American-born novelist and the first Hispanic writer to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. A native New Yorker, he earned a Master of Arts in Creative Writing from the City College of New York, where he studied under Susan Sontag, Donald Barthelme, and William S. Burroughs.

In addition to the Pulitzer, Hijuelos won the Rome Prize, an Ingram Merrill Foundation Award, the Hispanic Heritage Award for Literature as well as several grants from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. He wrote seven novels which have been translated into more than 25 languages.