Sandra Cisneros was born December 20, 1954, she is best known for her acclaimed novel The House on Mango Street(1984). She is the recipient of numerous awards including a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. Her early life provided many experiences she would later put into her writing. She grew up as an only daughter in a family of six brothers, which a lot of the times made her feel isolated. She also constantly migrated between her family in Mexico and in the US. Her work deals with the formation of Chicana identity, exploring the challenges of being caught between Mexican and Anglo-American cultures, and experiencing poverty. For her insightful social critique and powerful prose style, Cisneros has achieved recognition beyond Chicano and Latino communities, the the extent that The House On Mango Street has been translated worldwide and is taught in American classes as a coming of age novel.

       Sandra has held many professional positions: working as a teacher, counselor, college recruiter, a poet in the schools, arts administrator. She stills maintains a strong commitment to community and literary causes. In 1998 she founded the Macondo Foundation, which provides socially conscious workshops for writers.

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandra_Cisneros

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