By Erin Miller

Editor in chief

Pulitzer Prize winner Oscar Hijuelos opened the final keynote lecture in the 2002 Festival of Faith and Writing with a warning.

``There are two versions of myself here tonight,'' he said, alluding to his formal, prepared speech about his writing and the humorous, parenthetical quips that surfaced every now and then throughout the speech, revealing what he claims is his true nature: an inability to be serious for long.

Hijuelos commented that he chose to speak at the festival because he believes the combination of faith and writing is particularly important.

``What could be more relevant to those folk who embrace writing than these two complementary entities?'' he said. ``Faith [is found in] fantasy, wish fulfillment and fiction. Fiction is the last place faith flourishes.

``Even though I'm a basically cynical person, I've always written about religious people who are quite optimistic,'' he added. ``From the outside looking in, my characters seem superstitious. They believe in the soul and pray.... They believe in the validity of intuition.''

Much of the faith depicted in his novels reflects the environment in which Hijuelos grew up, in a neighborhood in New York City, as a child of Cuban immigrants. In that neighborhood, he experienced both devout Cuban Catholicism and Afro-Cuban cults. People believed in things such as ghosts, reincarnation and spirits. All of that is worked into the novels he writes, he said.

More importantly, he does not incorporate all of his own cynicism into his characters.

``Whatever their flaws, they have a strong sense of faith and possess a sense of goodness,'' Hijuelos said.

Hijuelos, the author of six novels, won the Pulitzer Prize for his second novel, ``The Mambo Kings.'' He said he was surprised the novel was even published, because when he wrote it, riding on the success of his first novel, he disregarded the rules of conventional novel writing.

In the novel, the main characters, brothers who immigrate to New York City and form a band, personify the sexuality, spirituality and machismo of their home culture. Hijuelos explained the meaning behind the actions of one of the brothers, Cesar Castillo.

``Cesar Castillo seems much like a sinner [but] his thoughts [are of] ... God and justice,'' he said. ``Deep down, he truly wishes he was a better man. He would never intentionally hurt anyone. If his veneer seems hard, it's because he's wearing a disguise.

``I consider that book an extended meditation of mortality and meaning of faith in a man's life,'' he added.

Hijuelos also discussed his novel, ``Mr. Ives' Christmas,'' the story of a man whose only son decides to become a priest. Before the young man graduates from high school and enters seminary, however, he is murdered outside the church by another young man.

The story follows the lead character, Mr. Ives, for many years following his son's death and shows how Mr. Ives and his son's killer are eventually reconciled.

``[Mr. Ives] makes Catholicism the strongest aspect of his identity,'' Hijuelos said. ``Without any certainty of his true identity, he is a perpetual outsider. He takes on the mantle of faith like a nationality.''

For Hijuelos, to leave out references to the customs and traditions of the Catholic church would be to create novels that are not realistic portraits of life as he knows it.

``I have never been able to resist writing about my Catholicism,'' he said. ``All the incense, the rituals fascinated me. I can't avoid references back to my childhood. My Catholicism exists in my book as surely as the sun or sky.''