Sandra cisneros biography poetry online
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2nd ed. In 2005 Caramelo was awarded the Premio Napoli and was short listed for the Dublin International IMPAC Award. She read her poems to club and coffee shop audiences, gradually earning a local reputation.
In 1982, Cisneros received a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship. In her free time she wrote and submitted poems to literary journals with some success.
More recently, she received the National Book Critics Circle 2024 Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, the Authors Guild’s 2025 Baldacci Award for Literary Activism, the Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award from the Dayton Literary Peace Prize Foundation, and was named one of the 2025 Order of Lincoln Recipients by Illinois Governor JB Pritzker.
In addition to her writing, Cisneros has fostered the careers of many aspiring and emerging writers through two nonprofits she founded: the Macondo Foundation and the Alfredo Cisneros del Moral Foundation.
As a single woman, she made the choice to have books instead of children.
She worked on a high school literary magazine, eventually becoming editor. Gale Research, 1998.
Gale, 1993.
Content last updated: April 30, 2009
"We do this because the world we live in is a house on fire and the people we love are burning."
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker names Sandra Cisneros one of the 2025 Order of Lincoln Recipients.
The award is the state’s highest honor for professional achievement and public service.
With the award money she went to Europe, where she wrote The House on Mango Street. Her most recent book is Have You Seen Marie? (Random House, 2012), an illustrated fable for adults.
Sandra Cisneros’ books have been translated into over a dozen languages, including Spanish, Galician, French, German, Dutch, Italian, Norwegian, Japanese, Chinese, Turkish, Greek, Thai and Serbo-Croatian.
Recientemente, obtuvo el National Book Critics Circle 2024 Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, el Authors Guild’s 2025 Baldacci Award for Literary Activism, el Premio al Logro Distinguido Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke de Dayton Literary Peace Prize Foundation y Recibió la Orden de Lincoln de manos del gobernador de Illinois JB Pritzker.
Además de su carrera literaria, Sandra ha apoyado a muchos aspirantes y escritores emergentes a través de dos organizaciones sin fines de lucro que ella misma fundó: la Fundación Macondo y la Fundación Alfredo Cisneros del Moral.
Como mujer soltera, eligió tener libros en lugar de hijos.
This collection of poems touches upon a mélange of topics—among them female emancipation, friendship and self-identity.
With her book Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories (1991), Cisneros became the first Chicana author to sign with a major American publisher, Random House. Today, The House on Mango Street is required reading in schools throughout the United States.
In 1985 came the publication of Antojitos (Arte Publico) and The Rodrigo Poems (Third Woman).
In 1987 Cisneros’ master’s thesis, My Wicked, Wicked Ways, was revised and expanded, then published by Third Woman Press. Cisneros earned a BA in English from Loyola University of Chicago and an MFA from the University of Iowa.
Cisneros’s books of poetry include Woman Without Shame (Alfred A. Knopf, 2022); Loose Woman (Alfred A.
Knopf, 1994); My Wicked, Wicked Ways (Third Woman Press, 1987); and The Rodrigo Poems (Third Woman Press, 1985).
Cisneros is also the author of the best-selling novel The House on Mango Street (Arte Público Press, 1984), which won the American Book Award in 1985 and has been translated into multiple languages.
Depicting the lives of Chicana women in the San Antonio area, the book garnered both critical and popular acclaim and earned the author the financial stability she would need to be a full-time writer.
Cisneros’ long-awaited second novel, Caramelo (Knopf, 2002), fictionalized the author’s family, highlighting a trip between Chicago and Mexico and the main character’s conversion from child to young adult.
In 2016, she received the National Medal of the Arts awarded by President Obama. Caramelo was selected as notable book of the year by the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Chicago Tribune and the Seattle Times. She and her six brothers grew up in Mexico and Chicago.