“… I’m sent back by the gods, who say ‘not so fast, you’ve got some more work to do.’ Instead of going on to paradise forever, I’m returned to a sea shore, to my family who is waiting for me. The book offers some hope, some consolation, after our journey through the many hells that we have been through.”
Continue reading“We take a deep dive with the original Xicanista and her poetry in her latest work, “My Book of the Dead” which is timely both in the age of COVID-19 and during the Halloween season…” KJZZ
Continue readinghttps://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/11/us-migrant-children-opaque-network-facilities
“I Heard the Cries of Two Hundred Children”
I heard the cries of two hundred children
bleating in the desert.
They were not two hundred but two thousand…
Continue readingMY BOOK OF THE DEAD paints a vivid panorama, a contemporary Hieronymus Bosch triptych in breathtaking magnificence because of Castillo’s skill, her ear, her vision, and her courage. Infused with passion, lyricism, and magical realism, Castillo makes us laugh and cry and speaks truth we need to hear.
Continue readingDrawings by Castillo are featured throughout the collection and further showcase her connection to her work as both a writer and a visual artist. MY BOOK OF THE DEAD is a remarkable collection that features a poet at the height of her craft.
Continue readingFor more than forty years, Chicana author Ana Castillo has produced novels, poems, and critical essays that forge connections between generations; challenge borders around race, gender, and sexuality; and critically engage transnational issues of space, identity, and belonging. Her contributions to Latinx cultural production and to Chicana feminist thought have transcended and contributed to feminist praxis, ethnic literature, and border studies throughout the Americas.
Continue readingIf you follow this blog and can take one thing away from this post–
Continue readingMucho traffic and a stampede of plebes down below. Above all, Mulch. Mulch was what Palma Piedras called the wide and astonishingly ordinary middle class at the start of the twenty-first century.
Continue readingRecipient of International Latino Book Award in autobiography, LAMBDA award in best bisexual non-fiction. Paloma Negra,” Ana Castillo’s mother sings the day her daughter leaves home, “I don’t know if I should curse you or pray for you.” Growing up as the intellectually spirited daughter of a Mexican Indian immigrant family during the 1970s, Castillo defied convention as a writer and a feminist. A generation later, her mother’s crooning mariachi lyrics resonate once again. Castillo—now an…
Continue reading2006 Independent Publisher Book Award for Story Teller of the Year Reminiscent of the picaresque novel, Watercolor Women / Opaque Men contains episodes that range from the Mexican Revolution to modern-day Chicago and reflects a deep pride in Chicano culture and the hardships immigrants had to endure. “A shape shifting voice and earth shaking figures of her story: …the poetic structure of Castillo’s novel glides smoothly and compellingly in tercets…like some unstoppable force…” — BUY EBOOK “…Ana Castillo…
Continue reading
