These are my friends and readers over in Alaska. Pictured here are 8th and 7th graders from Chevak School in Chevak, Alaska.

To arrange an appearance, contact Stuart Bernstein at stuart@stuartbernstein.com

Sandra's Book - Puro Amor - Is Here

Hello everyone!

Sandra's book Puro Amor is available in book stores! You can also order by clicking here.

This beautiful chapbook is bilingual and contains several illustrations—line drawings by Sandra herself! Liliana Valenzuela, an award-winning poet and acclaimed Spanish translator, provides the translation for the book.

Sandra 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.”

Sandra Wins PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature

The prestigious prize is awarded annually to “a living author whose body of work, either written in or translated into English, represents the highest level of achievement in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and/or drama, and is of enduring originality and consummate craftsmanship.”

This year’s judges were writers Alexander Chee, Edwidge Danticat, and Valeria Luiselli. They explained: “Sandra Cisneros has said that she writes because ‘the world we live in is a house on fire and the people we love are burning.’ In a formidable and awe-inspiring body of work, which includes fiction, memoir, and poetry, Cisneros brings us astounding and lyrical voices from burning, maligned, devastated, as well as reassembled houses, and nations. It’s hard to imagine navigating our world today without her stories and her voice guiding us towards needed much reclamation and endurance.”

To read more about the award, click here.