Ay Tú!

September 2, 2024
Literary scholars celebrate the life, work, and activism of Chicana writer Sandra Cisneros in these astute essays. Georgina Guzmán argues that Cisneros’s creative evolution from the “significantly less ethnic, minimalist style” of her 1984 novella, The House on Mango Street, to the “oppositional Mexican American maximalism” of 2002’s sprawling Caramelo signifies how Cisneros “learned to take up more space” and stop fretting over the judgments of literary critics and “dominant society.” Several writers emphasize Cisneros’s contributions to the development of Chicana literature. For instance, Sara A. Ramírez draws on Cisneros’s correspondence with feminist poet Norma Alarcón to recount how the two friends founded the Third Woman journal and Third Woman Press in 1979 to promote the writings of women of color. The selections make excellent use of Cisneros’s archives (Olga L. Herrera’s examination of how The House on Mango Street recasts Cisneros’s Chicago upbringing is largely based on Cisneros’s childhood diaries), and a wide-ranging concluding interview between journalist Macarena Hernández and Cisneros sheds light on the author’s formative years (Cisneros recounts how growing up with six “hypercritical” brothers led her to become a ruthless editor of her own work). It’s a fitting tribute to a beloved author.

October 15, 2024
The first interdisciplinary collection of essays by scholars to address the work of the Mexican American novelist and poet underscores themes of shame and finding her unique voice. The publication of Cisneros' work starting in the mid-1980s has coincided with the emergence of Chicana critical studies, note editors Sald�var-Hull and Gano in their introduction to the author's life and work. Born in Chicago in 1954, Cisneros embarked on a literary and academic career that took her to Texas, California, and Mexico, with subsequent award-winning books, fromThe House on Mango Street (1984) toWoman Without Shame (2022). Among the 13 essays here, divided into three parts, Mary Pat Brady explores Cisneros' use of folk "types" in her sprawling novelCaramelo, both celebrating and satirizing them; Olga L. Herrera focuses on Cisneros' early experience (as recorded in her actual childhood diaries) of segregation in Chicago to create her spacial construction inThe House on Mango Street. Georgina Guzm�n turns to Cisneros' grade-school diaries in mining themes of shame and trauma in her work. Adriana Estill looks at Cisneros' use of the telenovela as a subversive form in her poetry collectionLoose Woman (1994). Belinda Linn Rinc�n finds in Cisneros' transgressive characters (mistresses) a transformative and liberating autonomy over their bodies. Several of the essays address Cisneros' collaboration and friendship with other important Chicana writers such as Joy Harjo, Norma Alarc�n, and Helena Mar�a Viramontes. The last piece of the collection concludes with a 2021 interview with Cisneros by journalist Macarena Hern�ndez that happily escapes the dry academic language in favor of Cisneros' own lively descriptions of growing up. Not terribly accessible for the lay reader, but a tremendous gathering of voices acclaiming Cisneros' influence.

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