(DePaul University/Randall Spriggs)
This month, Erika Sánchez's novel "I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter" rose to the top spot on the New York Times' best-seller list in the young adult paperback category. Published in 2017 by the Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Chair in DePaul's Latin American and Latino Studies program, the book tells the story of a teenager coming to terms with losing her sister and finding herself amid the pressures, expectations and stereotypes of growing up in a Mexican American home.
"When I wrote 'I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter,' I didn’t set out to write a young adult novel," Sánchez
told Newsline upon joining DePaul in 2020. "I wanted to write the book that I wanted when I was a teenager."
In addition to her role on DePaul's faculty, Sánchez is a poet, essayist and fiction writer. Her other works include the poetry collection "Lessons on Expulsion" and an acclaimed memoir, "Crying in the Bathroom," published this year.