SOURCE: "Returning to One's House: An Interview with Sandra Cisneros," in Southwest Review, Vol. 82, No. 2, Spring, 1997, 166-85.

In the following interview, Cisneros discusses her childhood, the female perspective in her work, and her experience as a Latina writer.

SATZ: Your book House on Mango Street has been marketed as a book for young people, but it isn't the sort of book that is usually produced for children. Would you talk about that?

CISNEROS: I'd like to comment on that. It seems to be marketed as a young people's book, but my readers range anywhere from second graders to university students to housewives. I like the fact that it has such a range. It's written, I suppose, with the intent that it can be read as single stories or as a novel. It does have one general theme.

I suppose the book is being marketed that way because the...