Ana Castillo
Ana Castillo
Lund-Gil Endowed Chair, Dominican University
Visiting Scholar 2007-2008
Hosted by the Department of Writing and Humanistic Studies/ Department of Women's and Gender Studies
Bio
Ana Castillo is a celebrated poet, novelist, short story writer, essayist, editor, playwright, translator and independent scholar. As of 2014, she holds hold the Lund-Gil Endowed Chair at Dominican University (IL). Dr. Castillo's award-winning, bestselling works include So Far From God, The Guardians, Peel My Love like an Onion, I Ask the Impossible, and her novel Sapogonia was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Considered one of the leading voices in the Chicana experience, her work is known for its experimental style and socio-political comment based on oral and literary traditions.
Dr. Castillo holds a BA from Northeastern Illinois University, an MA from the University of Chicago (1979), a PhD in American Studies from the University of Bremen in Germany, and an honorary doctorate from Colby College. In addition to a prolific publication record dating back to 1977, she has contributed to periodicals, on-line venues (Salon and Oxygen), and national magazines, including More and the Sunday New York Times. Dr. Castillo’s writings have been the subject of numerous scholarly investigations and publications. She has been profiled and interviewed on National Public Radio, the History Channel, and was a radio-essayist with NPR in Chicago. She is editor of La Tolteca, an arts and literary ‘zine dedicated to the advancement of a world without borders and censorship and on the advisory board of the new American Writers Museum in D.C. Included among the many teaching appointments Dr. Castillo has held throughout her extensive career are: first Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Endowed Chair at DePaul University; and Poet-in-Residence at Westminster College.
Her journey to MIT began at a conference in which she spoke on the role of ecology in literature, and a participant encouraged her to consider a longer visit to the Institute. As an MLK Visiting Professor, Dr. Castillo was hosted by both the Department of Writing and Humanistic Studies and the Department of Women's and Gender Studies and lived on campus at Simmons Hall as a Residential Scholar. She taught two writing courses and read from her fifth novel, The Guardians, an exploration of family life along the U.S.-Mexico border. In addition to teaching and touring The Guardians, Dr. Castillo used the year to begin working on The Last Goddess Standing, a novel about women during the conquest of Mexico (see Dr. Castillo's 2012 keynote lecture for The Association for the Study of Women & Mythology.
Publications
20TH ANNIVERSARY Revised Edition Massacre of the Dreamers: Essays on Xicanisma (UNMP),
Fall 2014
Give It To Me: Novel (The Feminist Press; NY), Fall 2014
MY Mother’s Mexico (New and Collected Essays) (The Feminist Press, NY), Spring 2015
The Guardians, 2007
Psst . . .: I Have Something to Tell You, Mi Amor: Two Plays, 2005
Watercolor Women/Opaque Men: A Novel in Verse, 2005
I Ask the Impossible: Poems, 2001
My Daughter, My Son, The Eagle, The Dove, (Young readers), English and Spanish editions, Dutton Children’s Books, 2000. 2000 Americas Award for Children’s and Young Adult Literature Commended Title.
Peel My Love Like an Onion, English and Spanish editions. Nominated for the Dublin Prize, 2000.
Loverboys: Stories, 1996, Paperback 1997.
Goddess of the Americas/La Diosa de las Américas, (editor, anthology), English and Spanish editions, 1996.
Massacre of the Dreamers: Essays on Xicanisma, (critical essays), 1994
My Father Was a Toltec: and Selected Poems, 1995. This edition includes the entire previous edition My Father Was a Toltec, selections from first three collections, and early anthologized poetry.
Ana Castillo reading from her works [sound recording]. 1994. Recorded Dec. 2, 1994, in the Recording Laboratory, studio A, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. for the Archive of Hispanic Literature on Tape.
Recent Chicano poetry: Neueste Chicano-Lyrik, (co-editor, poetry anthology) with Heiner Bus, University of Bamberg, 1994.
Sapogonia: an anti-romance in 3/8 meter, 1994 (uncut version of the novel)
So Far from God: A Novel, (This novel was also published in Great Britain, Germany, Mexico, Latin America, Spain and Turkey. Optioned for film by director Linda Mendoza) New York Times Notable Book, 1994.
The Sexuality of Latinas, edited with Norma Alarcon & Cherrie Moraga, English and Spanish editions, 1993
The Mixquiahuala Letters, English and Spanish editions, 1986, reprinted in 1992.
Sapogonia, 1994 (revised); and Bilingual Review Press, 1990. New York Times Notable Book, 1994.
Esta Puente, Mi Espalda: Voces De Mujeres Tercermundistas En Los Estados Unidos, editado por Cherríe Moraga y Ana Castillo; traducido por Ana Castillo y Norma Alarcón, 1988 (essays)
My Father Was a Toltec: poems, 1988
Women Are Not Roses, (poetry), 1984.
The Invitation, (poetry chapbook), 1979 (reprinted in 1986).
Otro Canto, (poetry chapbook), 1977.