ONLINE: Sandra Cisneros

media release: Presented in partnership with the Portland Book Festival, a long-forgotten letter sets off a charged encounter with the past in this poignant and gorgeously told tale masterfully written by Sandra Cisneros, the celebrated bestselling author of The House on Mango Street, in a beautiful dual-language edition. Cisneros will appear live on Crowdcast to discuss her newest book, Martita, I Remember You, in conversation with Kali Fajardo-Anstine. Join the event at: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/wbfpbf-martita. Before the event begins, you will see a countdown and the event image.

As a young woman, Corina leaves her Mexican family in Chicago to pursue her dream of becoming a writer in the cafés of Paris. Instead, she spends her brief time in the City of Light running out of money and lining up with other immigrants to call home from a broken pay phone. But the months of befriending panhandling artists in the metro, sleeping on crowded floors, and dancing the tango at underground parties are given a lasting glow by her intense friendships with Martita and Paola. Over the years the three women disperse to three continents, falling out of touch and out of mind—until a rediscovered letter brings Corina’s days in Paris back with breathtaking immediacy.

Martita, I Remember You is a rare bottle from Sandra Cisneros’s own special reserve, preserving the smoke and the sparkle of an exceptional year. Told with intimacy and searing tenderness, this tribute to the life-changing power of youthful friendship is Cisneros at her vintage best.

Copies of Martita, I Remember You will be distributed for free to the first 150 attendees who reserve a copy. During the event, there will be a link to claim your book. Simply fill out the form and a book will be sent to you. 

Sandra Cisneros is a poet, short story writer, novelist, essayist, performer, and artist whose work explores the lives of the working-class. Her numerous awards include NEA fellowships in both poetry and fiction, a MacArthur Fellowship, several honorary doctorates, and national and international book awards, including Chicago’s Fifth Star Award, the PEN America Literary Award, and the National Medal of Arts. Most recently, she received the Ford Foundation’s Art of Change Fellowship, was recognized among the Frederick Douglass 200, and won the PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature.

In addition to her writing, Cisneros has fostered the careers of many aspiring and emerging writers through two nonprofits she founded: the Macondo Foundation and the Alfredo Cisneros del Moral Foundation. She is also the organizer of Los MacArturos, Latino MacArthur fellows who are community activists.

Kali Fajardo-Anstine is the author of the widely acclaimed Sabrina & Corina (One World, 2019), a finalist for the National Book Award, the PEN/Bingham Prize, The Clark Prize, The Story Prize, the Saroyan International Prize and winner of an American Book Award. She is the 2021 recipient of the biennial Addison M. Metcalf Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

She has been awarded fellowships from Yaddo, MacDowell, Hedgebrook, and Tin House. Her work has been honored with the Denver Mayor’s Award for Global Impact in the Arts and the Mountains and Plains Independent Booksellers Association Reading The West Award. Sabrina & Corina was included on several end of year lists, including the American Library Association and the New York Public Library.

Fajardo-Anstine’s writing has been published in The New York Times, Harper’s Bazaar, ELLE, O the Oprah Magazine, The American Scholar, Boston Review, and elsewhere. Her stories have been translated into numerous languages including Japanese, Italian, German, Slovenian, Spanish, and Turkish

Fajardo-Anstine was born in Denver, Colorado and is the second eldest of seven siblings. She dropped out of high school weeks into her senior year, earning her GED and going on to graduate with a BA in English and Minor in Chicana/o Studies from Metropolitan State University of Denver. She holds an MFA from the University of Wyoming and worked for over a decade as an independent bookseller at West Side Books in North Denver.