Ana Castillo is a Mexican-American Chicana novelist, poet, short story writer, essayist, editor, playwright, translator and independent scolar. Considered as one of the leading voices in Chicana experience, known for her daring and experimental style as a Latino novelist. Her works offer pungent and passionate socio-political comment that is based on established oral and literary traditions.
Education
After completing undergraduate studies, she immediately began teaching college courses. She earned her Master's degree in Latin American and Caribbean studies from the University of Chicago with a thesis entitled "The Idealization and Reality of the Mexican Indian Woman". She received her doctorate from the University of Bremen, Germany, in American studies in 1991. In lieu of a traditional dissertation, she submitted the essays later collected in her highly acclaimed work Massacre of the Dreamers.
Career
Castillo writes about Chicana feminism, which she dubs "Xicanisma", and her work centers on issues of identity, racism, and classism. Many of her protagonists are fiercely independent, sometimes lesbian, women. Her "imaginative fiction" shows the influence of magical realism. For example, the novel Sapogonia is about a fictional country that is the home to all mestizos. Much of her work has been translated into Spanish. She has also contributed articles and essays to such publications as the Los Angeles Times and Salon.
Her papers are housed at the California Ethnic and Multicultural Archives at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Novels
* The Mixquiahuala Letters. Binghamton, N.Y. : Bilingual Press/Editorial Bilingue, 1986.
* Sapogonia: An anti-romance in 3/8 meter. Tempe, Arizona: Bilingual Press/Editorial Bilingüe, 1990.
* So Far From God. New York: W.W. Norton, 1993.
* Peel My Love Like an Onion. New York : Doubleday, 1999.
* My Daughter, My Son, the Eagle the Dove: An Aztec Chant. New York: Dutton Books, 2000.
* Watercolor Women, Opaque Men : A Novel in Verse. Willimantic, Connecticut: Curbstone Press, 2005.
* The Guardians. New York: Random House, 2007.
Story collections
* Loverboys. New York: W.W. Norton, 1996.
Poetry
* Otro Canto. Chicago: Alternativa Publications, 1977.
* The Invitation. 1979
* Women Are Not Roses. Houston: Arte Público Press, 1984.
* My Father Was a Toltec and selected poems, 1973-1988. New York: Norton, 1995.
* I Ask the Impossible. New York: Anchor Books, 2000.
* "Women Don't Riot"
Non-fiction
* Massacre of the Dreamers: Essays on Xicanisma. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1994.
Translations
* Este Puente, Mi Espalda: Voces de Mujeres Tercermundistas en los Estados Unidos (with Norma Alarcón). San Francisco: Ism Press, 1988. (Spanish adaptation of This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, edited by Cherríe Moraga.)
As editor
* The Sexuality of Latinas (co-editor, with Norma Alarcón and Cherríe Moraga). Berkeley: Third Woman Press, 1993.
* Goddess of the Americas: Writings on the Virgin of Guadalupe / La Diosa de las Américas: Escritos Sobre la Virgen de Guadalupe (editor). New York: Riverhead Books, 1996.