Sandra Cisneros autobiographical practices: the simple yet intricate art of weaving verdad with puro cuento

Abstract

Adopting a historical perspective, the present work investigates the emergence and use of the literary genre autobiography , associated with modernity and its notion of subjectivity. I question the genre from the viewpoint of postcolonial feminist criticism, suggesting the term autobiographical practice as alternative. I intend to discuss the latter in the literary work of Sandra Cisneros, who was born in Chicago, in the United States, but who comes from a Mexican background. The focus of the literary analysis is on her most recent novel, Caramelo (2002), and her two books of poetry, My Wicked Wicked Ways (1987) and Loose Woman (1994). The notion of autofiction is brought up as a possible key to the reading to the novel. The analysis of the poems associates the author s aesthetics to that of confessional poetry and to her cultural heritage. The writer s latest publication, A House of My Own (2015), serves a cornerstone to my dissertation, since it provides most of the biographical material, extremely relevant to the present work, I make use of. This dissertations, then, discusses how Cisneros literature, given her condition as a Chicana author, can destabilize the genre of autobiography, to the extent that her texts at once utilize autobiographical elements, but do not belong to the traditional genre.