“Sandra Cisneros, the Mexican American novelist whose books “The House on Mango Street” and “Woman Hollering Creek” are widely considered contemporary classics of American literature, has won the PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature.

“Cisneros is the third author to win the annual award, after Syrian poet Adonis in 2017 and Irish novelist Edna O’Brien in 2018.”—LA Times

Literary critic Claudia Sadowski-Smith has called Cisneros “perhaps the most famous Chicana writer.” She has long supported other Chicana and Chicano writers, notably using much of her MacArthur Fellowship and other awards to fund programs and has been instrumental in building a strong community in San Antonio among other artists and writers through her work with the Macondo Foundation and the Alfredo Cisneros del Moral Foundation

She has long been one of my favorite people. I talked to her when she visited WordStock in Portland. I told her how I taught Mango Street and she urged me to share that approach, which I did. She held my hands. She was marvelous. She is a marvel.