Alfredo Cisneros Del Moral -

In the pantheon of Latin American letters, the name Cisneros is most famously attached to The House on Mango Street author Sandra Cisneros. But few know the ghost who haunts her success: her father, Alfredo Cisneros Del Moral .

The rule was radical in its simplicity: the award (originally a substantial $5,000, later varying) was to be given to a writer "born in Texas or residing in Texas" who had a significant body of work but had not yet received major recognition. But the unspoken criteria were the ones that mattered most: the writer must be on the verge of giving up. What makes this piece so compelling is the intentional design. The Cisneros Prize is not for the brightest debut or the most promising MFA student. It is explicitly for the Alfredos of the world—the night-shift janitor with a hidden manuscript, the single mother translating her grief into poems at 2 a.m., the aging veteran who writes stories about the border no publisher will touch. alfredo cisneros del moral

In 1998, she established and its annual literary prize. In the pantheon of Latin American letters, the