The Fisher Center’s “An Evening with Sandra Cisneros,” Part of the Big Read 2022, Recounted on Lion’s Roar

As part of the Big Read 2022, Sandra Cisneros spoke at the Fisher Center, sharing the history of The House on Mango Street and offering up advice to aspiring writers. Recounting the night for Lion’s Roar, Angélica Paljor highlighted Cisneros’s practical and spiritual guidance given to the audience at Bard this past April. “Writing, she said at Bard, ‘is sacred work, as sacred as a nun or a monk who meditates for days or hours—that’s how I see it,’” Paljor writes. The conversation, prompted by questions from Dinaw Mengestu, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Professor of the Humanities and director of Written Arts, and Mariel Fiori ’05, managing editor of La Voz, also touched on aspects of representation in writing and one’s intended audience. Ultimately, Cisneros implored beginning writers to write for themselves—and those they love: “I wrote [The House on Mango Street] to stay alive when I was dying, on behalf of the people I loved. That’s the difference: when we make something for those we love and we don’t do it with a personal agenda, siempre sale bonito—it’s always going to turn out well. That’s what The House on Mango Street taught me.”

Post Date: 08-09-2022