Cisneros' awards include two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships (1982 and 1988); the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation, for The House on Mango Street (1985); the Paisano Dobie Fellowship (1986); first and second prizes in Segundo Concurso Nacional del Cuento Chicano, sponsored by the University of Arizona; the Lannan Foundation Literary Award (1991); an honorary doctorate from the State University of New York at Purchase (1993); and a MacArthur fellowship (1995).
Sandra Cisneros' work has been praised by critics for many reasons, from the authenticity of her characters' voices and experience to the marvelous simplicity of her style. Perhaps more important than critics are ordinary readers, who find Cisneros' writing to be moving, funny, direct, and true on the most basic of human levels. Her fiction, in The House on Mango Street and "Woman Hollering Creek" and Other Stories, is often compared to poetry — or even identified as poetry. The two books will be treated in the following pages as fiction; yet, like the best of poetry, these books can bring new discoveries, insights, and surprises with each rereading.
