Sandra Cisneros, Woman Without Shame / Mujer sin Vergüenza

This will be an in-store presentation and we will also live stream the evening on Zoom, please register to watch here.

We kindly request that all audience members wear a mask during the event.

Sandra will presign books for sale that evening. If you would like a book personalized, please order prior to the event.

Order the Woman Without Shame online here or the Spanish translation, Mujer sin Vergüenza, here or call the store (505) 988-4226.

It has been twenty-eight years since Sandra Cisneros published a book of poetry. With dozens of never-before-seen poems, Woman Without Shame is a moving collection of songs, elegies, and declarations that chronicle her pilgrimage toward rebirth and the recognition of her prerogative as a woman artist. These bluntly honest and often humorous meditations on memory, desire, and the essential nature of love blaze a path toward self-awareness. For Cisneros, Woman Without Shame is the culmination of her search for home—in the Mexico of her ancestors and in her own heart.

“These new poems by Sandra Cisneros prove that a mystic poet can be an aging brown-skinned woman shameless in her being. On this road where the sacred and profane hold hands, fight, and even dance a little beneath millions and billions of stars, even being a woman is called a sin. These poems are prayers for understanding this earthy journey of mystery and beauty. These poems cross the road with impunity. Impunity is wearing a fedora and smoking a cigar. These poems send us light. Strangers become relatives. We sit down and have a bite to eat together, a little something to drink, and listen to poetry. I want to live in this book, keep the doors and windows open, even if stray dogs and beggars wander through.”—Joy Harjo, 23rd U.S. Poet Laureate

About the Authors

Sandra Cisneros is a poet, short story writer, novelist, and essayist whose work exploresthe lives of the working-class. Her numerous awards include NEA fellowships in both poetry and fiction, the Texas Medal of the Arts, a MacArthur Fellowship, thePEN/Nabokov Award for International Literature and the NationalMedal of Arts. Her novel The House on Mango Street has sold over seven million copies, has been translated into over twenty-five languages, and is required reading in elementary, high school, and universities across the nation. A new book, Martita, I Remember You/Martita, terecuerdo, a story in English and in Spanish, was published in 2021. Woman Without Shame, is published by Knopf and by Vintage Español in a Spanish language translation, Mujer sinvergüenza, by Liliana Valenzuela. Cisneros is a dual citizen of the United States and Mexico. As a single woman, she chose to have books instead of children. She earns her living by her pen.

Margaret Randall is a feminist poet with a long history of social activism (in Mexico, Cuba, and Nicaragua, as well as the United States). More than 150 published books reflect her personal experience and generational struggles. She has also translated much poetry by others. In Mexico, she co-founded El Corno Emplumado, a bilingual journal that published more than 700 writers from 35 countries. Returning to the US in 1984, the government ordered her deported, claiming her writing subversive. She won her case in 1989. Among her recent awards are the Poet of Two Hemisphere Prize (Quito, Ecuador 2019) and the 2020 George Garrett Award given by AWP.