She is also the organizer of Los MacArturos, Latino MacArthur fellows who are community activists.

In addition to her writing, Cisneros has fostered the careers of many aspiring and emerging writers through two non-profits she founded: the Macondo Foundation and the Alfredo Cisneros del Moral Foundation. Her classic, coming-of-age novel, The House on Mango Street, has sold over six million copies, has been translated into over twenty languages, and is required reading in elementary, high school, and universities across the nation. Most recently, she received the Ford Foundation’s Art of Change Fellowship, was recognized among The Frederick Douglass 200, and was awarded the PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature.

Her numerous awards include NEA fellowships in both poetry and fiction, the Texas Medal of the Arts, a MacArthur Fellowship, several honorary doctorates and national and international book awards, including Chicago’s Fifth Star Award, the PEN Center USA Literary Award, and the National Medal of the Arts awarded to her by President Obama in 2016. SANDRA CISNEROS is a poet, short story writer, novelist and essayist whose work explores the lives of the working-class.

From the winner of the 2019 PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature. Like the cherished rebozo, or shawl, that has been passed down through generations of Reyes women, Caramelo is alive with the vibrations of history, family, and love. Soon, a multigenerational family narrative turns into a whirlwind exploration of storytelling, lies, and life. Struggling to find a voice above the boom of her brothers and to understand her place on this side of the border and that, Lala is a shrewd observer of family life. But when she starts telling the Awful Grandmother's life story, seeking clues to how she got to be so awful, grandmother accuses Lala of exaggerating. Every year, Ceyala “Lala” Reyes' family-aunts, uncles, mothers, fathers, and Lala's six older brothers-packs up three cars and, in a wild ride, drive from Chicago to the Little Grandfather and Awful Grandmother's house in Mexico City for the summer. From the celebrated bestselling author of The House on Mango Street and winner of the 2019 PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature.

Book caramelo