“A House of My Own” by Sandra Cisneros is a memoir consisting of forty pieces of writing that she writes as an address to other writers.  Sandra Cisneros is a famous latino writer who is known for writing bestselling books such as “The House on Mango Street”.  In the introduction, Cisneros talks about the background of why she is writing this memoir, and what it contains. She describes what she will talk about, such as her travels and other life events. She also goes into her family life. Overall,  the memoir is about Cisneros as a writer, and how she came about obtaining her “identity” as a writer and a person.

The first chapter is titled Hydra House. In the chapter, she talks about her time living in a house in the Greek islands, where she finished “The House on Mango Street”.  She describes living in the islands as a dream, as she and her friend spent most of their time writing. She also goes into detail about her time before writing. After grad school, she briefly worked numerous academic jobs, and talked about how she gave time to everything besides the one thing she loved most, writing. She decided that to gain inspiration and elevate herself as a writer, she needed to travel to really find herself. Luckily, she was able to receive a fellowship, which she then used to travel to Athens with a Greek poet. A motivation for Cisneros beside just finding herself through traveling, was to impress a man who she deemed as her “arch-nemesis”. She thought of him as sophisticated, and so that made her want to impress him by doing what he had done, travel the world. However, as her stay in Hydra went on, she cared less about his approval and more about her own writing. When her writing was being delayed, she had to cancel their meeting, which although prompted the man’s rage, was of little effect to Cisneros.  She notes ” I’d chosen my writing over a man, it wouldn’t be the last time.” She then talks about her journey afterwards, and living in the house in Hydra. She describes the house as a greek cottage.  She says that even though it was just a small cottage, it was one of the most beautiful places she has ever lived in. This really shows how even though the house in itself is not really luxurious, it is the place that she is in that matters more as she was able to really admire her surroundings much more.