By Nick Smith
Sandra Cisneros has been a feted author since her first book, The House on Mango Street, debuted in 1984. The skinny novella, just over a hundred pages, has sold over six million copies and is being adapted into a new opera with composer Derek Bermel and a TV show with Gaumont, the producers of Narcos. Despite this high-profile news, it is Cisneros’ original writing and her go-getting personality that really inspires readers and writers.
Her stories capture moments that are familiar yet freshly worded, making her popular with adolescents and adults alike. There’s something mythical about the way she balances domesticity with big moments in her characters’ lives – leaving an oppressive home, for example, or falling in love with a fanfaron. She shares her heart with us on the page.
A panel called, “A House of Our Own: A Tribute to Sandra Cisneros” was a highlight of this year’s Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) convention. It was held in early March in San Antonio, Texas, where Cisneros formerly lived and founded the Macondo Writers Workshop.
The special panel consisted of authors Liliana Valenzuela (Codex of Love: Bendita ternura), Reyna Grande (Dancing with Butterflies), Stephanie Elizondo Griest (Mexican Enough: My Life Between the Borderlines), Natalia Treviño, Macarena Hernández and John Phillip Santos (Songs Older than Any Known Singer). Together they were a powerhouse of poets and novelists. Yet, although the sage-like Santos, for example, has rubbed shoulders with the likes of Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs, he has a particular soft spot for Cisneros. I was bowled over by the writers’ respect for her.
One reason for Cisneros’ popularity in San Antonio is because she founded the Macondo Writers Workshop there 25 years ago, gathering likeminded writers, artists and activists around her a table in her kitchen, beseeching them to think about their conscience and write rigorously. They dug deep and built the Workshop into a Masters-level program with over 200 lifetime members.
Another reason is the author’s generosity of spirit, whether in the form of her advice – face your fears! Write to get the glass out of your heart! – or writing ‘blurb’ reviews for fellow novelists, or in her love of dogs. Half the panel have, at some time or other, been convinced by her to adopt a pup. The writers described her as, ‘sounding like a little girl,’ ‘a student of Buddhism,’ and ‘a big RuPaul aficionado,’ making for an eclectic description. However, she is perceived, she is admired and loved.
While this scale of adoration would go to other authors’ heads, Cisneros seems at least as concerned with encouraging other writers as she is with her own career. Macondo is part of her legacy. A larger part is the way she compels others to examine their own lives and souls and write.
So, what can we expect from a TV adaptation of the author’s debut book? The book is made up of 44 vignettes, more slice of life than fully developed dramas, but each has the potential to spark an episode of television because of its vivid characters and relatable, often adverse, situations. ‘Write about things you wish you could forget,’ Cisneros told one of the panelists. Her fearlessness as a writer is a reason why there’s still a fascination with her first book of fiction and that little house on Mango Street.