Martita, I Remember You/Martita, te recuerdo

By: Sandra Cisneros, Liliana Valenzuela

Narrated by: Sandra Cisneros, Sofia Leal De La Rosa, Carlotta Brentan

Length: 3 hrs and 20 mins

Publisher's summary

A long-forgotten letter sets off a charged encounter with the past in this poignant and gorgeously told tale masterfully written by Sandra Cisneros, the celebrated best-selling author of The House on Mango Street, in a dual-language edition.

As a young woman, Corina leaves her Mexican family in Chicago to pursue her dream of becoming a writer in the cafés of Paris. Instead, she spends her brief time in the City of Light running out of money and lining up with other immigrants to call home from a broken pay phone. But the months of befriending panhandling artists in the métro, sleeping on crowded floors, and dancing the tango at underground parties are given a lasting glow by her intense friendships with Martita and Paola. Over the years the three women disperse to three continents, falling out of touch and out of mind - until a rediscovered letter brings Corina’s days in Paris back with breathtaking immediacy.

Martita, I Remember You is a rare bottle from Sandra Cisneros’s own special reserve, preserving the smoke and the sparkle of an exceptional year. Told with intimacy and searing tenderness, this tribute to the life-changing power of youthful friendship is Cisneros at her vintage best, in a beautiful dual-language edition.

©2021 Sandra Cisneros and Liliana Valenzuela (P)2021 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

One of the Best Books of the Year: NPR, The Smithsonian

“To read this novella is to stumble upon gems. Cisneros’s prose hums, filled with personification, metaphor, and allusion, crisscrossing from Paris to Chicago to Mexico. Her writing spans languages, continents, and time.... Martita, I Remember You is a love letter to female friendship.” (Los Angeles Review of Books) 

"The House on Mango Street was THE book of my teenage years.... Martita, I Remember You/Martita Te Recuerdo feels like a continuation of that magic." (Literary Hub)

"Genre-defying...it is difficult to think of a more fitting story for today." (Houston Chronicle)  

From the Heart/Del Corazon

As a bilingual reader, I read this book in both languages and was equally enchanted by the story, the voices and the emotions.

Thank you/Gracias Sandra!

Beautiful, long-awaited story.

My favorite author, Sandra Cisneros, so I’m biased. But this story is as lovely as her others. Listening to it, which I never had done with her other works, was like a song.