Author Sandra Cisneros receives Holbrooke award for work that helps promote peace and understanding

NEW YORK (AP) — Author Sandra Cisneros is this year’s winner of the Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award, honoring writers who help foster “understanding between and among people.“ Cisneros is best known for her million-selling novel “The House on Mango Street” and has often drawn upon her Mexican heritage and her childhood community in her own work. She has also supported other writers through her nonprofits the Macondo Foundation and the Alfredo Cisneros del Moral Foundation. The Holbrooke award is named for the late U.S. diplomat and is presented by the Dayton Literary Peace Prize Foundation. In 1995, Holbrooke helped broker the Dayton Peace Accords that ended the Bosnian War.