Sandra Cisneros

Novelist, Author

1954 –

 Credit ยป
125

Who is Sandra Cisneros?

Sandra Cisneros is an American writer best known for her acclaimed first novel The House on Mango Street and her subsequent short story collection Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories. Her work experiments with literary forms and investigates emerging subject positions, which Cisneros herself attributes to growing up in a context of cultural hybridity and economic inequality that endowed her with unique stories to tell. She is the recipient of numerous awards including a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and is regarded as a key figure in Chicana literature.

Cisneros's early life provided many experiences she would later draw on as a writer: she grew up as the only daughter in a family of six brothers, which often made her feel isolated, and the constant migration of her family between Mexico and the USA instilled in her the sense of "always straddling two countries ... but not belonging to either culture." Cisneros's work deals with the formation of Chicana identity, exploring the challenges of being caught between Mexican and Anglo-American cultures, facing the misogynist attitudes present in both these cultures, and experiencing poverty. For her insightful social critique and powerful prose style, Cisneros has achieved recognition far beyond Chicano and Latino communities, to the extent that The House on Mango Street has been translated worldwide and is taught in American classrooms as a coming-of-age novel.

We need you!

Help us build the largest biographies collection on the web!

Born
Dec 20, 1954
Chicago
Parents
Nationality
  • United States of America
Profession
Education
  • Josephinum Academy
  • Loyola University Chicago
  • University of Iowa

Submitted
on July 23, 2013

Citation

Use the citation below to add to a bibliography:

Style:MLAChicagoAPA

"Sandra Cisneros." Biographies.net. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 Mar. 2024. <https://www.biographies.net/people/en/sandra_cisneros>.

Discuss this Sandra Cisneros biography with the community:

0 Comments

    Browse Biographies.net