Sandra Cisneros
Sandra Cisneros
Sandra Cisnerosis an American writer best known for her acclaimed first novel The House on Mango Streetand 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...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth20 December 1954
CityChicago, IL
CountryUnited States of America
I was reading all these male writers who were doing wild and wonderful things. It gave me permission to experiment.
I was reading Carl Sandburg and Gwendolyn Brooks, and I'm still very, very deeply moved by Gwendolyn Brooks's life and her work.
I think of reading as like a medicine cabinet.
Think about the books that you were reading at a certain crisis in your life, what you were reading, and that's because you needed them to nourish your alma.
I like to think about the bestseller list as, "This is the medicine cabinet of a very sick country." Let me look and see what they're reading that isn't nourishing them.
When I say what I'm reading, this is what I need. I know the ills that plague me.
When we started publishing, you had to be better than good. You had to be excellent. But as long as people are reading, I don't care what they're reading.
[Thich Nhat Hanh] the one that revolutionized Buddhism. Instead of being monks just engaged in meditation, it was active Buddhism. You went out and felt the ills of the community around you. Instead of retreating to a monastery, you were out in the streets working. And he's been a great help to me, just reading his book, so I don't feel helpless about what I can do about all the violence around me.
You can try reading books that will help you be a leader, like Marshall Rosenberg and Thich Nhat Hanh. Be very humble and say, "I don't know why. I don't feel qualified, but I accept this role that you gave me, and so help me."
When I was very young I was reading a lot of Latin American fiction, which later would be called "boom fiction."
I can get by and chatter and talk and tell funny stories, make people laugh, but I don't have as many words, I don't have the vocabulary. I think if I forced myself to read in Spanish - you know, I always say I'm going to, but I lose my patience reading in Spanish, because I really do read the way a third grader does, mouthing the words. That takes a long time!
My friend, Dennis Mathis, was reading Eastern European and Japanese experimental writers, and I brought the Latin American writers to his attention, so we exchanged books and bounced off one another.
I was reading Emily Dickinson and Edwin Arlington Robinson, but these weren't the poets that influenced me. I think Gwendolyn Brooks influenced me because she wrote about Chicago, and she wrote about poor people. And she influenced me in my life by giving me a blurb. I would see her in action, and she listened to every single person. She didn't say, "Oh, I'm tired. I gotta go." She was there, and present, with every single person. She's one of the great teachers.
These stories celebrate what's at the heart of so many Latino success stories -- a desire to achieve and make a difference, ... Visitors to this Smithsonian exhibit will have the opportunity to learn about Latinos who have made varying but very important contributions to the American fabric.