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, best known for her million-selling novel “The House on Mango Street," has often drawn upon her Mexican heritage and her childhood community in her own work and supported other writers through her nonprofits the Macondo Foundation and the Alfredo Cisneros del Moral Foundation. The Holbrooke award, named for the late U.S. diplomat, is presented by the Ohio-based Dayton Literary Peace Prize Foundation.