Author │ Essayist │ Poet

“An always skilled storyteller, [Castillo] grounds her writing in . . . humor, love, suspense and heartache–that draw the reader in.”

    –Chicago Sunday Sun-Times

In novels, short stories, poems, and essays, Castillo explores what Ibis Gomez-Vega has called “those segments of the American population often separated by class, economics, gender, and sexual orientation.” Castillo’s works nevertheless transcend boundaries of politics, class, and gender, making her “one of a few Mexican American writers who have attracted the attention of the mainstream reading public” (Ibis Gomez-Vega). Castillo’s prose blends elements of oral history and established literary tradition with innovation and experimentation: she has been called “the most daring and experimental of Latino novelists” (Ilan Stavans).

Raised in a working-class neighborhood in Chicago, Castillo credits the powerful storytelling tradition of her Mexican heritage as the foundation and inspiration for her writing. By the time she graduated from college, Castillo had already begun to establish herself as a dynamic poetic voice: she published poems in anthologies and magazines as a college student, and three volumes of poetry followed shortly thereafter.

In the mid-1980’s, Castillo turned to fiction. So Far From God, her first novel to be widely read, was published in 1993. Blending aspects of magical realism with a powerful family narrative and strong feminist undertones, the book marked Castillo as one of the country’s most gifted and engaging Latina writers. Publications following this include the short story collection Loverboys, which Booklist called “defiant, satirically hilarious, sexy, and wise” and the novel Peel My Love Like an Onion, praised by Publishers Weekly for being “sardonic and seductive…[a] compulsively readable narrative.”

Castillo’s most recent novel, The Guardians, follows the lives of Mexican immigrants who illegally cross the border into the United States. Combining crushing realism with mystical transcendence, The Guardians centers on a family devastated by deaths and disappearances. Ultimately, “Castillo’s incandescent novel of suffering and love traces life’s movement toward the light even in the bleakest of places” (Donna Seaman, Booklist starred review). Perhaps Castillo’s most lauded achievement to date, The Guardians is “a moving book that is both intimate and epic” (Oscar Hijuelos) and a story which “stirs the spirit and fills the heart” (The Boston Globe).

Susan Straight, author of A Million Nightingales, says that The Guardians “gives America exactly what it needs--her vision of a border that most people never see...and a story that will not let us go. Her voice is singular, and her talents are on full display here. Everyone needs to visit her world.”

Castillo has been a contributor to many anthologies, including The Third Woman: Minority Woman Writers of the United States (1980), Cuentos Chicanos (1984) and Goddess of the Americas (1996). Her writings have been published in Frontiers, The Los Angeles Times, The Nation, The San Francisco Chronicle, and The Washington Post, among many others. She has taught at Northwestern University, the University of California at Santa Barbara, the University of New Mexico, and Mount Holyoke College.

In her lectures, Castillo speaks about the craft of storytelling as well as Chicana identity and culture. Castillo lives in New Mexico, where she is currently working on a screenplay of So Far From God with director Linda Mendoza. Random House will release her next novel, The Last Goddess Standing, in 2012, and the Feminist Press will release My Mother's Mexico: Essays in 2013.

Selected Writings

• The Guardians (Random House, 2008)
• Psst...I Have Something To Tell You, Mi Amor (Wings Press, 2005)
• Peel My Love Like an Onion (Doubleday, 1999)
• Loverboys (W.W. Norton, 1996)
• Goddess of the Americas: Writings on the Virgin of Guadalupe (Riverhead Books, 1996)
• So Far From God (W.W. Norton, 1993)

Awards

2009  Americo Paredes Award for contributions in literature, University of Texas-Austin
2006  IPPY Award, Outstanding Book of the Year, "Story Teller of the Year" category, for The Guardians
1994  Mountains and Plains Booksellers Award for So Far From God
1993  Carl Sandburg Award for Fiction for So Far From God
1990 & 1995  National Endowment for the Arts fellowships for poetry
1986  American Book Award for The Mixquiahuala Letters