Sandra Cisneros – författare

Told in a series of vibrant vignettes, The House On Mango Street is the story of Esperanza Cordera, a young girl growing up in the Hispanic quarter of Chicago. For Esperanza, Mango Street is a desolate landscape of concrete and run-down tenements where she discovers the hard realities of life - the fetters of class and gender, the spectre of racial enmity and the mysteries of sexuality. Capturing her thoughts and emotions in poems and stories, Esperanza is able to rise above hopelessness and create for herself "a house all of my own quiet as snow, a space for myself to go" in the midst of her oppressive surroundings.

This is a collection of short stories which bring to life the sounds and smells of Mexico - with breathtaking range and authority, whose characters give life to the varied life on both sides of the Mexican border. From a young girl revealing secrets only an eleven-year-old can know, to a witch woman circling above the village on a pre-dawn flight, the women in these stories offer tales of pure discovery, filled with moments of infinite and intimate wisdom.

Every year the three Reyes sons and their families drive south from Chicago via Route 66 to the home of the Awful Grandmother and the Little Grandfather on Destiny Street in Mexico City. From the back seat of her father's red Chevy station-wagon, our storyteller Lala loves to witness the crossover from endless Texas to flamboyant Mexico, the switch from truck stop donuts to street vendors with corn on the cob, the smell of hot tortillas and the sting of roasting chillies in the throat and eyes. The youngest of many cousins, Lala is also the most curious. Did the Little Grandfather really lose those very ribs in a terrible battle? And why is the Awful Grandmother's special treasure, her caramelo silk shawl, the colour of burnt milk candy, still unfinished ? As Lala grows older she learns the colourful tales and 'healthy lies' behind the official family legends. Cisneros is a great story teller, a tantalizing conjurer of tastes and atmospheres - and the creator of characters who stomp and dance off the page into your heart.

A TODAY SHOW #ReadWithJenna BOOK CLUB PICK NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A 40th anniversary hardcover edition of Sandra Cisneros’s beloved coming-of-age novel about a young girl growing up in Chicago, with a new introduction by John Phillip Santos • Acclaimed by critics, beloved by readers of all ages, taught in schools and universities alike, and translated around the world—from the winner of the 2019 PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature.“Cisneros draws on her rich [Latino] heritage...and seduces with precise, spare prose, creat[ing] unforgettable characters we want to lift off the page. She is not only a gifted writer, but an absolutely essential one.” —The New York Times Book Review  The House on Mango Street is one of the most cherished novels of the last fifty years. Readers from all walks of life have fallen for the voice of Esperanza Cordero, growing up in Chicago and inventing for herself who and what she will become. “In English my name means hope,” she says. “In Spanish it means too many letters. It means sadness, it means waiting."Told in a series of vignettes—sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes joyous—Cisneros’s masterpiece is a classic story of childhood and self-discovery and one of the greatest neighborhood novels of all time. Like Sinclair Lewis’s Main Street or Toni Morrison’s Sula, it makes a world through people and their voices, and it does so in language that is poetic and direct. This gorgeous coming-of-age novel is a celebration of the power of telling one’s story and of being proud of where you're from. Everyman’s Library pursues the highest production standards, printing on acid-free paper, with full-cloth cases with two-color foil stamping, decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers, European-style half-round spines, and a full-color illustrated jacket. Contemporary Classics include an introduction, a select bibliography, and a chronology of the author’s life and times.

The House on Mango Street is one of the most cherished novels of the last fiftyyears. Readers from all walks of life have fallen for the voice of EsperanzaCordero, growing up in Chicago and inventing for herself who and what she willbecome. “In English my name means hope,” she says. “In Spanish it means toomany letters. It means sadness, it means waiting."Told in a series of vignettes—sometimes heart breaking, sometimesjoyous—Cisneros’s masterpiece is a classic story of childhood andself-discovery. It is also one of the greatest neighbourhood novels of all time.Like Sinclair Lewis’ Main Street or Toni Morrison’s Sula, it makes a worldthrough people and their voices, and it does so in language that is poetic anddirect. Acclaimed by critics, a staple in schools, translated into dozens oflanguages, this gorgeous coming-of-age novel is a celebration of the power oftelling one’s story and of being proud of where you come from.