Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Literature

Extract

The protagonist of Sandra Cisneros's The House on Mango Street reflects Cisneros's childhood experience, moving often within the poverty of the barrio. The novel's popularity and adoption in countless classrooms allowed many readers to discover for the first time a voice with which they identified. With that novel, Cisneros captured an enormous audience and led a group of Chicana/o voices that would greatly affect the landscape of reading in the English language. Cisneros was born on December 20, 1954 in Chicago to native Mexican parents. Later answering why she began writing, Cisneros stated, “I am the only daughter in a family of six sons…. That explains everything” (1990, 3–4). The isolation her characters suffer mirrors that of her youth, as her family moved often between Mexico and Chicago, resulting in her lack of attachment to either culture. However, later in the University of Iowa graduate writing program she realized her dissonance could afford her a valuable narrative point of view differing from that of others. As she worked on The House on Mango Street in 1980, she released 100 copies of a poetry collection titled Bad Boys and also received the first of two National Endowment for the Arts awards. Relocating to Europe, Cisneros worked full-time on the novel, which she published in 1984. A hybrid collection of poetry and fiction, My Wicked, Wicked Ways , followed ... log in or subscribe to read full text