The House on Mango Street

Sandra Cisneros · b. 1954 · United States / Mexico

Why it matters

Vignettes of a Latina girl coming of age in a poor Chicago barrio, in prose that verges on poetry. Cisneros's slim, luminous book put Mexican-American girlhood at the center of the American canon.

At a glance

Short poetic vignettes in plain, direct language make this highly accessible.