The House on Mango Street by Mexican American writer Sandra Cisneros has been taught in high schools across the U.S. for decades. A poetic writer of many genres, she’s received a MacArthur “genius grant,” a National Medal of Arts, and many other accolades. Cisneros grew up in an immigrant household where it was assumed she would marry as her primary destiny. In this warm and lively conversation with a room full of Latinx teens, she gives voice to the choice to be single — and, single or not, to know solitude as sacred.

Sandra Cisneros is a writer and poet whose books include The House on Mango Street, Caramelo, and a memoir, A House of My Own. Her work has been lauded in many ways, including with a MacArthur “genius grant,” the Texas Medal of Arts, the National Medal of Arts, and the PEN/Nabokov Award for international literature.

This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Sandra Cisneros — A House of Her Own." Find more at onbeing.org.