Women’s History Month continues, and this week we are focusing on the author Sandra Cisneros.

Cisneros was born in Chicago in the mid-1950s. Her parents where Alfredo Cisneros del Moral, a Mexican immigrant who gained citizenship through participation in World War II, and Elvira Cordero Anguiano, who was Mexican American. Growing up, Cisneros was 1 of 7 children, her other 6 siblings being brothers. Cisneros developed a love of reading at an early age, and this was supported by her mother, who made it a point to bring her children to the library, museums, and other free cultural events as often as she could.

Sandra herself didn’t start writing until she was in high school. A teacher encouraged her to submit some of her poetry to the school’s literary magazine. She later served as the editor for this magazine, which helped her work her way to Loyala University. Once there, she majored in English, and was encouraged by her professors to apply for a Masters in Fine Arts at the University Of Iowa. While attending an Iowa Writer’s Workshop, Cisneros had an epiphany. She realized that her definitions and understandings of the words ‘home’ and ‘neighborhood’ where different from her fellow attendees, and she wanted to write about her community.

For the next decade years, Cisneros worked a number of different jobs, as well as working on a number of stories that would eventually become The House On Mango Street. After receiving a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, Cisneros spent a year in Europe and came back to America with collection of short stories that she revised and reworked into The House On Mango Street. A year after it’s publication it won the American Book Award of the Before Columbus Foundation, and it has remained well received since. As of 2011, two million copies where sold. Some of our students may have read this book in school, and for many people, this was their introduction to some of the issues faced by the chicano community. It may have also been the first time they saw something like them in literature or as an author.

The House On Mango Street may be Cisneros’ most popular publication, but it is certainly not her only one. Our Information Literacy Librarian, Caroline, highly recommends her short story collection Women Hollering Creek. We also have a number of Cisneros works available in our collection, such as…

The House On Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

La casa en Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

Caramelo, o, Puro cuento by Sandra Cisneros (Spanish version)

Caramelo, or, Puro cuento by Sandra Cisneros

Martita, I remember you = : Martita, te recuerdo by Sandra Cisneros (English and Spanish)