Sandra Cisneros
(1954– )
Many of Sandra Cisneros’ ideas for her fiction and poetry come from her childhood experiences. She often felt homeless and displaced because her family frequently moved back and forth between the United States and Mexico. She found comfort, however, in reading. She also wrote poems and stories throughout her childhood. Later, in graduate school, she realized that as a Latina, her experiences were different from those of her classmates. In her best-known work, The House on Mango Street (1983), Cisneros reflects on what it means to be a young Hispanic girl in America. The book explores the hopes, disappointments, and awkward adolescence of Esperanza. Cisneros has written another collection of stories, Woman Hollering Creek and other stories (1991), and several collections of poetry, including Bad Boys (1980).
