In The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros draws on her own experience as a Hispanic woman writer facing obstacles in a patriarchal community resistant to change. Published in 1984 to instantaneous acclaim, the book is made up of lyrical passages, interconnected vignettes, and meditations and observations that resemble prose poems. Cisneros's structurally and thematically bold work explores the often violent coming of age of a young Mexican-American woman.