'Cisneros draws on her rich [Latino] heritage … and seduces with precise spare  prose, creating unforgettable characters we want to lift off the page. She is not only a gifted writer but an absolutely essential one’
New York Times Book Review
Told in a series of vibrant vignettes, The House on Mango Street is the story of Esperanza Cordera, a young girl growing up in the Hispanic quarter of Chicago.  For Esperanza, Mango Street is a desolate landscape of concrete and run-down tenements where she discovers the hard realities of life - the fetters of class and gender, the spectre of racial enmity and the mysteries of sexuality.  Capturing her thoughts and emotions in poems and stories, Esperanza is able to rise above hopelessness and create for herself 'a house all of my own quiet as snow, a space for myself to go' in the midst of her oppressive surroundings.

A word-of-mouth bestseller.

"Days and Nights succeeds not only because of its socio-political authenticity and lyrical style but because of its interweaving of anger and tenderness, elation and sorrow."
"--The Nation"

Days and Nights of Love and War is the personal testimony of one of Latin America's foremost contemporary political writers. In this fascinating journal and eloquent history, Eduardo Galeano movingly records the lives of struggles of the Latin American people, under two decades of unimaginable violence and extreme repression. Alternating between reportage, personal vignettes, interviews, travelogues, and folklore, and richly conveyed with anger, sadness, irony, and occasional humor, Galeano pays loving tribute to the courage and determination of those who continued to believe in, and fight for, a more human existence. The Lannan Foundation awarded the 1999 Cultural Prize for Freedom to Eduardo Galeano, in recognition of those "whose extraordinary and courageous work celebrates the human right to freedom of imagination, inquiry and expression."

Originally published in Cuba, Days and Nights of Love and War won the Casa de las Americas prize in 1978."

Over a long, influential career in poetry, Joy Harjo has been praised for her "warm, oracular voice" (John Freeman, Boston Globe) that speaks "from a deep and timeless source of compassion for all" (Craig Morgan Teicher, NPR). Her poems are musical, intimate, political, and wise, intertwining ancestral memory and tribal histories with resilience and love. In this gemlike volume, Harjo selects her best poems from across fifty years, beginning with her early discoveries of her own voice and ending with moving reflections on our contemporary moment. Generous notes on each poem offer insight into Harjo's inimitable poetics as she takes inspiration from Navajo horse songs and jazz, reckons with home and loss, and listens to the natural messengers of the earth. As evidenced in this transcendent collection, Joy Harjo's "poetry is light and elixir, the very best prescription for us in wounded times" (Sandra Cisneros, Millions).

Vintage Readers are a perfect introduction to some of the great modern writers presented in attractive, accessible paperback editions.
"Sandra Cisneros knows both that the heart can be broken and that it can rise and soar like a bird. Whatever story she chooses to tell, we should be listening for a long time to come." --"The Washington Post Book World
"A winner of the PEN Center West Award for Best Fiction and the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship, Sandra Cisneros evokes working-class Latino experience with an irresistible mix of realism and lyrical exuberance.
Vintage Cisneros" "features an excerpt from her bestselling novel The House on Mango Street, which has become a favorite in school classrooms across the country. Also included are a chapter from her new novel, Caramelo; a generous selection of poems from My Wicked Wicked Ways and Loose Woman; and seven stories from her award-winning collection Woman Hollering Creek,"
"

Sandra Cisneros has a fondness for animals and this little gem of a story makes that abundantly clear. "La casa azul," the cobalt blue residence of Mister and Missus Rivera, overflows with hairless dogs, monkeys, a fawn, a "passionate" Guacamaya macaw, tarantulas, an iguana, and rescues that resemble "ancient Olmec pottery." Missus loves the rescues most "because their eyes were filled with grief." She takes lavish care of her husband too, a famous artist, though her neighbors insist he has eyes for other women: "He's spoiled." "He's a fat toad." She cannot reject him. "...because love is like that. No matter how much it bites, we enjoy and admire the scars." Thus, the generous creatures pawing her belly, sleeping on her pillow, and "kneeling outside her door like the adoring Magi before the just-born Christ." This beautiful chapbook is bi-lingual and contains several illustrations--line drawings by Cisneros herself.

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. 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. Soon, a multigenerational family narrative turns into a whirlwind exploration of storytelling, lies, and life. 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.

This jewel-like vignette from Sandra Cisneros's best-selling The House on Mango Street shows, through simple, intimate portraits, the diversity among us.

A Dragonfly Book in English and Spanish.

A Parenting Magazine Best Children's Book of the Year  

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Un excelente constructor de vocabulario, con nombres de objetos en Ingl&#233s y en Espa&#241ol, acompa&#241ados por ilustraciones, agrupados por t&#243picos como colores, juguetes, animales y herramientas.

A collection of stories, whose characters give voice to the vibrant and varied life on both sides of the Mexican border. The women in these stories offer tales of pure discovery, filled with moments of infinite and intimate wisdom.

In Spanish/ en Español

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. 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. Soon, a multigenerational family narrative turns into a whirlwind exploration of storytelling, lies, and life. 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.

"Days and Nights succeeds not only because of its socio-political authenticity and lyrical style but because of its interweaving of anger and tenderness, elation and sorrow."
"--The Nation"

Days and Nights of Love and War is the personal testimony of one of Latin America's foremost contemporary political writers. In this fascinating journal and eloquent history, Eduardo Galeano movingly records the lives of struggles of the Latin American people, under two decades of unimaginable violence and extreme repression. Alternating between reportage, personal vignettes, interviews, travelogues, and folklore, and richly conveyed with anger, sadness, irony, and occasional humor, Galeano pays loving tribute to the courage and determination of those who continued to believe in, and fight for, a more human existence. The Lannan Foundation awarded the 1999 Cultural Prize for Freedom to Eduardo Galeano, in recognition of those "whose extraordinary and courageous work celebrates the human right to freedom of imagination, inquiry and expression."

Originally published in Cuba, Days and Nights of Love and War won the Casa de las Americas prize in 1978."