Award-winning Chicago poet Sandra Cisneros presents Woman Without Shame, her first new book of poems in twenty-eight years and her first to be published in Spanish.  The Washington Post said, “These poems sparkle with levity, empathy, sensuality, and sight… this collection will delight both devoted fans and those who may not often read poetry.”  For her appearance at the Field Museum and in collaboration with the National Museum of Mexican Art, Cisneros will read from her new book and will be accompanied by Cicero native Erika L. Sánchez, author, most recently, of Crying in the Bathroom: A Memoir. Sánchez will read some of the poems in Spanish, followed by a conversation between Cisneros and another Chicago poet, Carlos Cumpián.

Cisneros has described Woman Without Shame as the culmination of her search for home—in the Mexico of her ancestors and in her own heart.  Please join us as we, in a homecoming of a different sort and in collaboration with the National Museum of Mexican Art, welcome Sandra Cisneros to the Field Museum.

Recommended age: 18 years old or older

Health and safety information: By request of the authors, masks are required for this event. Please note, the Museum follows the city’s COVID guidelines, policies may change prior to the performance.

About Woman Without Shame

A brave new collection of poems from Sandra Cisneros, the best-selling author of The House on Mango Street.

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.

About Sandra Cisneros

Sandra Cisneros is a poet, short story writer, novelist, essayist, performer, and artist. Her numerous awards include NEA fellowships in both poetry and fiction, a MacArthur Fellowship, national and international book awards, including the PEN America Literary Award, and the National Medal of Arts. More recently, she received the Ford Foundation’s Art of Change Fellowship, was recognized with the Fuller Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature, 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. A citizen of both the United States and Mexico, Cisneros currently lives in San Miguel de Allende and makes her living by her pen.

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