Sandra Cisneros has parlayed her feelings of isolation and exclusion and her experience being caught between Mexican and Anglo-American cultures into a four-decades-long, award-winning writing career. She is best known for her coming-of-age novel, The House on Mango Street, about a young Latina girl’s idealization of “home.” The book has sold over six million copies, been translated worldwide, won the American Book Award, and become required reading in schools throughout the country.
She has also authored a short-story collection, Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories, and several volumes of poetry, including Loose Woman, My Wicked Wicked Ways, and Bad Boys.
Her father ran away from Mexico to the United States after failing out of college, and she was born the only surviving daughter of seven in Chicago in 1954. She spent much of her life traveling back and forth between Mexico and the U.S. and, as a result, frequently changed schools and moved from home to home. The instability of her family caused her brothers to pair off, leaving her alone. She earned a Bachelor of Arts from Loyola University Chicago in 1976 and received a Master of Fine Arts from the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa in 1978.
Her writing shifts between cultures and languages and explores her experiences growing up a feminist Latina straddling two countries. She draws on Mexican and Southwestern popular culture, telling about the lives of people she identified with.
“I’m a translator. I’m an amphibian. I can travel in both worlds. What I’m saying is very important for the Latino community, but it is also important for the white community to hear. What I’m saying in my writing is that we can be Latino and still be American,” she said to The New York Times.
A pioneering Chicana author, she was the first female Mexican-American writer to have her work published by a mainstream publisher. She has received multiple awards throughout her career, including the 2003 Texas Medal of the Arts Award and the 2015 National Medal of Arts.