"All the energy of a riotous family fiesta. . . . Cisneros is undeniably at her peak." -"The Washington Post
""A glorious book, Caramelo is crowded with the souvenirs and memories of the dramas of everyday life...like an oversized family album, intimate as well as universal."--"The Philadelphia Inquirer
""A joyful, fizzy American novel. . . Soulful, sophisticated and skeptical, full of great one-liners, it is one of those novels that blithely leap across the border between literary and popular fiction." -"New York Times Book Review
""Like Eduardo Galeano, John Dos Passos and John Steinbeck, Cisneros writes along the borders where the novel and social history intersect. In this lovingly told and poetic novel, she uses the storytelling art to give the voiceless ones a voice, and to find the border to the past, imbuing the struggles of her family and her countries with the richness of myth." -"Los Angeles Times
""A wonderful book . . . evoking life's absurdity and possibility, tragedy and transcendence. . . . Combines the thematic richness of the most ambitious literature with the delight in character and plot of the most engrossing page-turner." -"Chicago Sun-Times
""Cisneros is a writer for all people. This is a novel of families, home life and finding yourself in the world's greater landscape." -"USA Today
""A sprawling, exuberant hopscotch through a century of family history. . . . Cisneros seduces us with her knitted tales, great and small, and her message is all the more powerful for its shimmering clarity." -"Time Out New York
""Cisneros has a great eye for detail, a good ear for dialogue and a marvelous sense of humor. . . Caramelo""is a tour de force-rich in its use of language, breathtaking in scope." -"St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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"Lovingly, passionately woven from dust and glory. . . A sweeping family history that somehow manages to interlace not just the Reyeses -- those conjurers, enticers and troublemak

Sandra Cisneros was born in Chicago in 1954. Internationally acclaimed for her poetry and fiction, she has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the Lannan Literary Award and the American Book Award, and of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the MacArthur Foundation. Cisneros is the author of the novels The House on Mango Street and Caramelo, a collection of short stories Woman Hollering Creek, a book of poetry Loose Woman, and a children's book Hairs/Pelitos. She lives in San Antonio, Texas.