5. The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, Oscar Hijuelos

The Mambo Kings – brothers Nestor and Cesar Castillo – flee Batista-era Havana to settle down on La Salle Street on the edge of Harlem. Nestor’s New York-born son narrates the story of their exploits in 1950s New York City after both Nestor and Cesar are dead. At the centre of that story is an encounter with another Cuban migrant-turned-New Yorker, Desi Arnaz, who provides The Mambo Kings with their greatest success — an appearance on I Love Lucy as Ricky Ricardo’s Cuban cousins. Mambo Kings was the first novel by a Latino to win the Pulitzer Prize. The New Yorker judged it “a story so utterly American that it’s a wonder we haven’t heard this particular version of it before.”