Sandra Cisneros

Sandra Cisneros was born in Chicago on December 20, 1954. She and her six brothers grew up in Mexico and Chicago. 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. Her other works of fiction are Caramelo (Alfred A. Knopf, 2003) and Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories (Penguin, 1991), which won the Quality Paperback Book Club New Voices Award, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, and the Lannan Foundation Literary Award. She is also the author of the bilingual children’s book Hairs: Pelitos (Apple Soup Book, 1994).

Among Cisneros’s other honors are fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the MacArthur Foundation. In 2016, she received the National Medal of the Arts awarded by President Obama. In 2025, she was awarded the National Book Critics Circle’s lifetime achievement award. 

Cisneros has taught at many colleges and universities, including the University of California, the University of Michigan, and the University of New Mexico. She lives in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.