Saratoga Reads 2007 Book of Choice: Caramelo
The votes are in for the Saratoga Reads book of choice for 2007, and the winner is
Caramelo by Sandra Cisneros. The book was selected by popular vote from a top-10 list of novels.
Caramelo received 127 (17 percent) of the total 749 votes cast. A close second was Empire Falls by Richard Russo, with 124 votes. The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri came in third, and The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck was fourth. Members of the community were invited to vote online,
through the mail, or at designated locations in the Saratoga Springs area.
Published in 2003, Caramelo follows three generations of a Mexican-American family through the dramas of everyday
life. This family saga and social history is filled with music, food, truths, lies,
and fantasy as it depicts the universality of the immigrant experience. As the narrator,
Celaya, explains, "Life was cruel. And hilarious all at once." Celaya learns to celebrate
and appreciate the family who aggravates her but ultimately saves her.
Caramelo was selected as a notable book of the year by the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, and Seattle Times.
Books by Cisneros have been translated into more than 12 languages, from Spanish
and French to Greek, Thai, and Serbo-Croatian. Her works include four books of poetry,
two novels, a collection of short stories, and a children's book. Her book Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories won the PEN Center West Award for best fiction in 1991. A number of U.S. cities have
selected one of Cisneros's works for citywide reading projects, including Los Angeles,
Miami, Fort Worth, El Paso, and Milwaukee.
Cisneros was born in 1954 in Chicago, the third child and only daughter in a family
of seven children. She moved frequently during her childhood and traveled to Mexico
often to visit her paternal grandmother. She earned a B.A. in English from Loyola
University in Chicago and an M.F.A. in creative writing from the University of Iowa.
Her honors and awards include a MacArthur Foundation fellowship, two National Endowment
for the Arts fellowships, the Chicano Short Story Award from the University of Arizona,
and a Texas Medal of the Arts Award.
Cisneros lives in San Antonio, Texas.
Saratoga Reads will kick off its third year of programming with an all-day book fair Dec. 6 at Barnes & Noble, Route 50, Wilton.
