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Sandra Cisneros was born in Chicago on December 20, 1954, the only daughter in a family of seven children. After unsuccessful college education, her father Alfredo escaped in Chicago where he met Elvira Cordero Anguiano. After getting married, the pair settled in one of the Chicago's poorest neighbourhoods. The Cisneros family travelled frequently between Chicago and Mexico City to visit relatives, often settling in a different home upon each return. The family resided for the majority of Sandra's youth in the Humboldt Park neighbourhood.

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Growing up in a home where library cards were mandatory, Sandra retreated into books and began to express herself in poetry. It was in school, at St. Josephinum in Chicago, that Cisneros first found out outlet and discovered acceptance for her creativity. Encouraged by a teacher, Cisneros wrote poetry and became willing to share her work with her young peers. She worked on a high school literary magazine, eventually becoming editor. Cisneros went on to study English at Loyola University of Chicago, and in 1978 received her M.F.A. in creative writing from the renowned University of Iowa Writers' workshop.

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After Cisneros graduated with her second degree, she returned to Chicago. She became a teacher and counsellor at the Latino Youth Alternative High School, where she taught students that dropped out of school. Cisneros has also worked as a college recruiter and an arts administrator.

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Sandra Cisneros is a poet, short story writer, novelist, and essayist, whose work explores the lives of the working class. In addition to her writing, Cisneros has fostered the careers of many aspiring and emerging writers through the two non-profit organizations she founded: the Macondo Foundation and the Alfredo Cisneros del Moral Foundation.

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Book Bad Boys was published in 1980, this collection of poems was Cisneros' first published work. Its poems focus on the struggles and experience of various Latinos, from the child of an abusive father to a Spanish-speaking schoolgirl.

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The House on Mango Street is a 1984 novel. Structured as a series of vignettes, it tells the story of Esperanza Cordero, 12-year-old Chicana girl growing up in the Hispanic quarter of Chicago. Based in part on Cisneros's own experience, the novel follows Esperanza over the span of one year in her life, as she enters adolescence and begins to face the realities of life as a young woman in a poor and patriarchal community.

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Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street

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Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories is a book of short stories published in 1991. The collection reflects Cisneros's experience of being surrounded by American influences while still being familially bound to her Mexican heritage as she grew up north of the Mexico-US border. These tales focus on the social role of women, and their relationships with the men and other women in their lives.

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Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories, Sandra Cisneros

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Caramelo is a 2002 epic novel spanning a hundred years of Mexican History. It was inspired by her Mexican heritage and childhood in the barrio of Chicago. The main character, Lala, is the only girl in a family of seven children and her family travels between Chicago and Mexico City, Because Cisneros also has six brothers and her family moved frequently when she was a child, the novel is semi-autobiographical.

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Vintage Cisneros, published in 2004, is a compilation of selections from her works.

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A House of My Own: Stories from My Life is a book published in 2015. It depicts Cisneros's struggle for autonomy from the psychological, financial, and familial forces that might have made a writing life impossible.

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A House of My Own; Stories from My Life, Sandra Cisneros

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The topics in her writing include the meaning of home, belonging, crossing boundaries and cultural expectations of women.