Oscar Hijuelos is no doubt best known for The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, the wildly popular novel which won him the Pulitzer Prize back in 1990. But in a career that spans nearly 30 years, Hijuelos has written 8 novels which critics have consistently praised for their ability to convey the suffering and grace innate in all human life, mostly through the rich depiction of the struggles of working-class Cuban Americans. Earlier this summer, Hijuelos published his first non-fiction book, Thoughts Without Cigarettes, a memoir. In this SundayArts Profile, Rafael Pi Roman speaks to Hijuelos about the memoir and more generally about his life and his writings at the Americas Society.