6 Books by Sandra Cisneros and the Honest Portrayals of Her Life
“I believe love is always eternal. Even if eternity is only five minutes.”
—Sandra Cisneros.
As a city girl with Mexican heritage, Sandra Cisneros has built her successful path as a writer by sharing with us her life experiences in heartwarming and honest works of both fiction and non-fiction.
Let’s take a look at 6 captivating books where Sandra Cisneros has offered us a glimpse of her life and the lessons she has learned.
Benefits of Reading in Spanish
While there are plentiful methods to learn a new language—and all of them can be effective according to each student—using literature to improve fluency guarantees significant results in becoming a proficient speaker.
If you are a Spanish learner, picking up an enthralling book in Spanish can get you amazing benefits like:
- Reading a realistic and natural usage of grammar
- Understanding the author’s context more deeply
- Visualizing examples of a descriptive language
- Read about a topic that will captivate your attention
- Practicing what you already know as you translate the text in your mind
- Learning new idiomatic expressions according to the author’s origins
- Improving your research skills as you learn more about different backgrounds
For such good reasons, I have prepared this interesting blog post about a series of books you have got to read!
Who Is Sandra Cisneros?
Mexican Sandra Cisneros—the only daughter among seven sons—was born on December 20th, 1954. She got her B.A. in English from Loyola University of Chicago.
Although her family wasn’t open to accepting her writing career, she persevered to obtain her M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Iowa in 1978.
Writing Style
With sensitive stories that expose her journey in humorous ways, Sandra Cisneros has found multiple opportunities to talk about the memories of her childhood, the struggles of her career, and the contrast of her spirit with that of her family.
She recognizes how her dreams were hard to understand within her family and that these differences made her who she is today.
Relevant Achievements
- National Medal of Arts (2016)
- American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation (for The House on Mango Street)
- PEN Center West Award for Best Fiction (1991)
- Fellowships from National Endowment for the Arts (1981 and 1988)
1. Martita, I Remember You (Martita, te recuerdo) (2021)
What It’s About
This nostalgic novel tells the story of Corina as she walks away from her family and moves to Paris.
The book unravels her life as her luck runs out and looks back to her days around her friends, Martita and Paola.
As Corina finds a mystical letter that throws her back to her younger days. What Sandra looks for in this insightful novel is to give relevance to young friendships that are more meaningful than what we may think of them at the moment.
As a brave writer, Sandra Cisneros has decided to publish this novel in Spanish and English all in one edition for you to choose your preferred language!
What Others Are Saying
The readers have given this novel great ratings as they admire the writing style as she combines poetry with an epistolary novel that delves into life-changing events in significant friendships.
“Best-selling Chicana author Sandra Cisneros is back with a brand-new gem… A lovely pick for those who love reading about friendships.”—Reader’s Digest
Publishers Weekly admires the author’s rhythm in writing this work of prose to tell Corina’s eventful years.
2. The House on Mango Street (La casa en Mango Street) (1984)
What It’s About
Sandra Cisneros’s acclaimed work of fiction narrates Esperanza Cordero’s life in Chicago. With a diversity of themes surrounding the Latina’s life in the United States, Sandra approaches Esperanza’s family in precarious conditions and her own journey into becoming a woman.
Switching between cheerful moments and unfortunate events, Esperanza finds herself in a world with multiple limitations. The book points out the relevance of the language barrier and how it affects those who are monolingual—Esperanza affirms that knowing another language gives us more power.
Sandra also addresses the fluctuations of our self-perception as we become adults and the perpetual distress to define who we are despite others’ expectations.
Esperanza’s mind is set on being independent, mature, and building a life totally opposite to the women that she knows are trapped in unhappy marriages.
What Others Are Saying
The readers praise the book for its accuracy in describing Hispanics’ life in Chicago. They recognize this coming-of-age vignette has the power to influence recent generations due to the combination of autobiographical tales and fictional ones.
“A deeply moving novel… delightful and poignant…. Like the best of poetry, it opens the windows of the heart without a wasted word.” —Miami Herald
3. Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories (1991)
What It’s About
Sandra Cisneros offers us a collection of 22 short stories about growing up as a Mexican-American. With a special structure, she broke this compilation into three parts to address the difficulties of different stages of a woman’s life.
For instance, in the first part, the stories are about childhood in both Mexico and the U.S.
In the next section, the main topic is girl adolescence to finalize the book with the last section about grown women and the contrast between each of their lives according to the paths they had to take. Sandra emphasizes women’s imposed role and their hardships as immigrants,such as the lack of appropriate environmental conditions in their homes.
Overall, she portrays stereotypes and clichés of men and women, along with women’s constant search for identity while dealing with sexist families.
In some stories, she addresses her own life around an American life while her parents planted in her a strong Mexican influence.
What Others Are Saying
The readers assure many of the stories in this collection are memorable while they point out the injustice of the world.
They claim that while not all of the stories are as captivating, most of them are wonderful works of art that give the reader a good taste of Sandra’s voice and cultural background.
“Sandra Cisneros knows both that the heart can be broken and that it can rise and soar like a bird.” Washington Post Book World.
4. Caramelo (2002)
What It’s About
This work of fiction tells the story of Celaya (Lala) Reyes’ Mexican-American family as they drive from Chicago to Mexico for the summer.
With humoristic dialogue and characters, Lala talks about her struggles to find a sense of belonging in her family.
The narrative revolves around Lala’s discovery of the lies hidden within a family—those told to make them look perfect and unproblematic to upcoming generations.
Sandra Cisneros found a one-of-a-kind metaphor for family stories across generations—the family rebozo (shawl). As it eventually makes its way to Lala, it represents traditions and stories going from one generation to another and how we accept these stories as true at some point in our lives.
This book emphasizes that as we grow up, we may find these stories to be false and to have dictated how we have lived our own lives. It also discusses how hard it can be to grow up to be so different from one’s family and how hard it is to break free from it.
A book I definitely want to read—Caramelo tells a story about being an outsider in our own family.
What Others Are Saying
Readers relate to the book and appreciate the humor and honesty of coping with a complicated family. They claim it is a challenging book to read as stories unfold in a unique way that can puzzle the reader, but it is a wonderful experience nonetheless.
They also enjoy the characters and the portrayal of women that have pleased everyone around them but themselves and how that builds their personality.
Los Angeles Times says, “In this lovingly told and poetic novel, she uses the storytelling art to give the voiceless ones a voice, and to find the border to the past, imbuing the struggles of her family and her countries with the richness of myth.”
This amazing book earned Sandra Cisneros one Premio Napoli along with the recognition as an important book of the year by The New York Times, L.A. Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, and Seattle Times.
5. Have You Seen Marie? (2012)
What It’s About
This short story—featuring beautiful illustrations—narrates a woman enduring the loss of her mother as she helps her friend search for Marie, her missing cat.
With parallelism between the lost cat and Sandra’s late mother, it uniquely discusses grief and the importance of remaining close to one’s roots.
The narrative highlights Sandra’s need to get out of her house and fight against the pain of her mother’s loss as she accompanies her friend in her search. Though a brief story, it also gives an insight into Hispanic heritage and culture.
What Others Are Saying
Readers consider it a powerful story with sincere metaphors about loss and grief. Though it may seem like a children’s book, they assure it is more accurately directed to adults suffering a significant loss.
“It offers comfort to anyone coping with the loss of a loved one.” —Kirkus reviews.
The San Francisco Chronicle affirms, “Cisneros captures the experience of grief with moving and visceral clarity… Like the best bedtime stories, [Have You Seen Marie?] both honor the darkness around us and keeps the same darkness at bay.”
6. A House of My Own: Stories from My Life (2015)
What It’s About
Sandra Cisneros skillfully presents a memoir where she collects non-fictional stories about her scattered life experiences in Chicago and Mexico.
As she poured her heart into this collection, she hoped it would state the difference between what has been true about her life and what she has only written as works of fiction.
She highlights how her independence played a relevant role in writing this book. She felt powerful having her own house and her own money. Her life situation at the time drove her to tell these stories in an honest way.
In these stories, she reveals how important it was for her to win her father’s approval about her writing career and how seeking that validation shaped her own writing style for some time until she found her own voice.
Her quest for autonomy in every sense was challenging and got her to think she could not achieve her goal of being a writer. Eventually, she decided to write worlds where she did belong and where she found the freedom to be herself.
What Others Are Saying
The readers praise her writing voice and the profound feelings that lay upon these pages.
They appreciate her honesty and her ability to reveal so much of herself in this memoir. They admire her bravery in exposing how her family shaped her writing while growing up in a house that didn’t feel like a home.
Praising it as the best memoir of the year, the Library Journal admired this book saying, “[Cisneros] Blends family stories from Chicago and Mexico with lively storytelling, rich details, and good humor.”
“An extraordinary and magical journey.”—Edwidge Danticat.
This unmasked narrative earned Sandra the 2016 PEN Center USA Literary Award for Creative Non-fiction.
Be One Step Ahead
Did you know that the U.S Census Bureau estimates that by 2050, the United States will be home to the largest Spanish-speaking population in the world?
Begin your Spanish-learning journey today and improve your chances to speak to more and more people around you! Speaking to more people means you get to know about a wide variety of backgrounds, intriguing stories, other countries’ history, and more!
Open the door to new experiences by signing up for a free class at our academy today! Become a fluent speaker as you practice with our native Spanish-speaking teachers and be one step ahead for the future!
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