Sandra Cisneros

Sandra Cisneros, born in 1954, American novelist, short-story writer, essayist, and poet, whose works helped bring the perspective of Chicana (Mexican American) women into the literary mainstream. She was one of the first Hispanic American writers to achieve widespread commercial success.

Sandra Cisneros was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, in a family of seven children. She earned a B.A. degree from Loyola University in Chicago in 1976 and a M.A. degree from the Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa in 1978. Cisneros then taught creative writing in a number of Chicago primary and secondary schools. During this time she began to read her poetry publicly, and several of her poems appeared in magazines. A poetry collection, Bad Boys, was published in 1980.

Cisneros's first novel, The House on Mango Street (1984), is her most critically acclaimed work. Loosely structured into a series of short, interconnected chapters, the book captures the hopes, desires, and disillusionments of a young female writer growing up in a large city. The character struggles to understand the roles created for women in Hispanic society. The childish narrative voice of the novel is also used by Cisneros in many of her subsequent works.

After the publication of The House on Mango Street, Cisneros began touring and reading her work to audiences. From 1983 to 1985 she directed a writing program at the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center in San Antonio, Texas. In 1985 she was presented with the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation for The House on Mango Street.

In 1987 Cisneros’s collection of poems My Wicked Wicked Ways was published, and in 1991 a collection of her essays and short stories appeared, titled Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories. Although these works were well received, neither surpassed the critical acclaim of The House on Mango Street, which had gained a secure place in college and high school curricula. Cisneros’s other works include the poetry book Loose Woman (1994); the children’s work Hairs/Pelitos (1994); and the novel Caramelo (2002). She won a prestigious MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (sometimes called the “genius grant”) in 1995.