A House of My Own Stories from My Life

Sandra Cisneros collects true stories and nonfiction pieces from three decades of her life, and the pieces fit together as a jigsaw autobiography. Illustrations run through the book, which gives it the feel of an intimate album.

The places she has lived drive the collection. They include the Chicago neighborhoods where she grew up and where she set The House on Mango Street. They also include her home in Mexico, in a region where her ancestors lived for centuries. Those places fed her fiction and poetry. Through all of them, a house of her own, where she could put down roots, stayed out of reach.

The pieces range widely. Some are private, such as an account of her parents' marriage, which was both loving and stormy. Some are political, including a rallying cry for the liberty of one woman in Sarajevo. Others are literary, among them a tribute to Marguerite Duras. Together they recall formative memories and show the artistic and intellectual influences that shaped her. Some of the work has never been published before.

This is memoir in short pieces rather than one continuous narrative, so it suits dipping in as well as reading straight through. The tone is personal and candid, warm toward its subject, and rooted in a life spent writing.