Campbell Street or Mango Street?

Why read The House on Mango Street? 

It is a work of fiction that depicts the reality of being Mexican and growing up poor in Chicago, which is like being an immigrant and poor in many other cities in the world. The book uses a child's vantage point in narration, with the plucky Esperanza acting as narrator. 

Not only are a number of resources available about this book, which recently celebrated it's 25th anniversary (published in 1984, in 2014), but it is interesting to note that the story has been used in alphabetization classes, as well as in schools (middle schools and high schools in the U.S.). It has now sold over two million copies, and has also been produced as a play.

Sandra Cisneros on her work

The author reads chapters (or vignettes) from the book

http://esl-bits.net/ESL.English.Learning.Audiobooks/Mango_Street/indice.html

The author speaks about the inspiration for the book, explaining her creative process

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Pyf89VsNmg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXO8a6HYttwhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXO8a6HYttw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CuRcFkH9nUhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CuRcFkH9nU

Text of the book 

(does copyright not apply?)

https://westernhs.bcps.org/UserFiles/Servers/Server_4204286/Image/Grade9%20HouseOnMango.pdf

People reading from the book

part 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQVbKB7SGTchttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQVbKB7SGTc

story 6

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHmkdkMWrX8https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHmkdkMWrX8

Other Resources

Ezzi, The House on Mango Street Book Review, MulticulturalFamilia (Sept 22, 2011).

Articles on The House on Mango Street that have featured in the Chicago Tribune.

Julio Cañero Serrano, "Esperanza's Transcendence: Sense of Community in Cisneros' The House on Mango Street" (link to pdf here).

Reviews of the play version via Chicago Critic.

***

Once you've finished the book, you'll be able to evaluate whether or not you think this short clip truly represents the book.

Philip Roth's indignation, er, oops, Indignation

Roth's new book Indignation was reviewed by Michiko Kakutani in the New York Times (September 16, 2008) and by David Gates (September 19, 2008) the first chapter is available here.  In it, a Korean War soldier who died lives on.

Links pages for Roth:

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/philip_roth/index.html

A series of interviews with Roth have been posted on You Tube.

Some French Blogs on American Literature

Discovery today of two blogs relating to American Letters:

Fric-Frac Club (apparently started in February 2008)

and 

L'escargot Garpien (begun in 2003)

One of the obsessions on both is Thomas Pynchon.

For Richard Ford buffs

Since Richard Ford is on the program of the French Agrégation for the second year in a row, he's catching a good bit of attention in France right now.  He will be speaking at the Université Marc Bloch in Strasbourg on September 20, 2008 at 3 p.m. at Club de la Presse, 10 place Kléber.

Recent publications on Ford include:

Florian Tréguer and François Henry, Lectures de Richard Ford: A Multitude of Sins (Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2008) has come out at about the same time as Brian Duffy, Morality, Identity and Narrative in the Fiction of Richard Ford (Rodopi, 2008).

A writer's remains

Philadelphia lays claim to Edgar Allen Poe, as described by Ian Urbina, "Baltimore Has Poe; Philedelphia Wants Him" in the New York Times (September 5, 2008).

When politics and librarians bushly mix. . .

Curtis Sittenfeld's novel American Wife (2008) was reviewed by Joyce Carol Oates in the New York Times (August 29, 2008).  The novel, writes Oates, is "conspicuously modeled after the life of Laura Bush as recorded in Ann Gerhart's biography The Perfect Wife: The Life and Choices of Laura Bush (2004)." 

Some readers may be disappointed: this is not political satire, with "very little that is political or even historical" (Oates).

You can read the first chapter here.

Dorothy West's House

The home of the author of The Living is Easy (1948) and The Wedding (1995) is now part of the African American Heritage Trail of Martha's Vineyard, as an article in the New York Times (August 17, 2008) relates.

The real Doris Lessing

A series of articles has been published about Doris Lessing by the New York Times (August 10, 2008) and an index page for articles that have appeared in the NYT about her, as well as a video of the Noble Prize announcement can be found here.

Toni Morrison's deepest passion

"My deepest passion was reading," said Toni Morrison, answering a question about how she took up writing, in Time, May 19, 2008. Her latest book, What Moves at the Margin (nonfiction) has just been published.

Hear Toni Morrison:
http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1738303,00.html

Louise Erdrich reads Lorrie Moore

In this podcast from The New Yorker (April 7, 2008) Louise Erdrich compares Lorrie Moore's humor to Philip Roth and notes that no-one has ever categorized Moore's stories as "chick lit"... Erdrich and Moore were both first published in The New Yorker in 1989. After the informative introduction, Erdrich reads Moore's short story "Dance in America."