The Pulitzer Prize–winning The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love is a contemporary American classic, a novel that still captures the imagination twenty years after its first publication. And now, in Beautiful Maria of My Soul, Oscar Hijuelos returns to the story, but tells it from the point of view of its beloved heroine, Maria.She's the great Cuban beauty, the woman who stole musician Nestor Castillo's heart and broke it, inspiring him to write the Mambo Kings' biggest hit, "Beautiful Maria of My Soul." Here, in Hijuelos's dazzling new stand-alone novel, she finally takes the spotlight.Now in her early sixties and living in Miami with her pediatrician daughter, Teresa, Beautiful Maria still turns heads. Having left Cuba decades before, she has gone on with her life, but has never forgotten Nestor, and as she thinks back to her days—and nights—in Havana, an entirely new perspective on the Mambo Kings story unfolds. Beautiful Maria of My Soul is a stunning feat of reimagination, another contemporary classic from an extraordinarily talented writer.