000			01969nam a22002657a 4500
999			_c17700 _d17699
003			OSt
005			20231109145937.0
008			230106s2002 nyu 000 1 eng d
020			_a0060175699
040			_cQCPL _erda
082			_aFic
100	1		_aHijuelos, Oscar _eauthor
245	1	2	_aA simple Habana melody (from when the world was good) _b: a novel _c/ Oscar Hijuelos
250			_aFirst edition
264		1	_aNew York : _bHarperCollinsPublishers, _c[2002]
300			_a342 pages
336			_2rdacontent _atext
337			_2rdamedia _aunmediated
338			_2rdacarrier _avolume
520			_aIt is 1947 and Israel Levis, a Cuban composer whose life had once been a dream of music, love and sadness, is returning to Habana, Cuba, from Spain, where he has just recovered from the physical and spiritual malaise resulting from his experiences in Paris, then Buchenwald, during the Nazi occupation of France. (A devout Catholic, Levis had been mistakenly identified as a Jew because of his name.) When Levis arrives back in Habana, after an absence of many years, his mind is reeling with beautiful memories of his life in Cuba and in Paris before the war, a life of pleasure and excitement that he owes, in part, to an unrequited, nearly "chivalrous" romance with a certain Rita Valladares, a singer for whom Levis had written his most famous song, "Rosas Puras," or "Pretty Roses." This 1928 composition becomes the most famous rumba in the world and changes both American and European tastes in music and dance - forever; and it is the song, symbolic of the composer's love for Rita Valladares, that sets Levis's life in Europe in motion. This is at once a love story - for art, family and country -- as well as a portrait of Habana at the turn of the last century, when "the world was good."
651			_aCuba _xHistory _y1933-1959 _vFiction
655		7	_2lcgft _910520 _aHistorical fiction
942			_2ddc _cBOOK
690			_aHistorical fiction