Elaine Castillo | |
|---|---|
 Castillo at the 2025 Edinburgh International Book Festival | |
| Born | 1984 (age 40–41) Milpitas, California, U.S. |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Education | University of California, Berkeley Goldsmiths, University of London (MA) |
| Notable works | America Is Not the Heart (2018) |
Elaine Castillo (born 1984 [1] ) is a Filipino-American writer. She was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area and attended University of California, Berkeley. In 2009, Castillo moved to London and later received a MA in Creative & Life Writing from Goldsmiths, University of London. [2] [3] She was a three-time recipient of the Roselyn Schneider Eisner Prize for prose while at UC Berkeley, and she has also been nominated for the Pat Kavanagh Award, a Pushcart Prize, and a Gatewood Prize. [2] [4] [5]
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Her first novel, America Is Not the Heart, was published in 2018 and received widespread acclaim. Ligaya Mishan, writing for the New York Times Book Review , describes the novel as "hungrily ambitious in sweep and documentary in detail, and reads like a seismograph of the aftershocks from trading one life for another". [6] Maris Kreizman, wrote in Vulture that "the writing in America Is Not the Heart is tremendous, the descriptions evocative, and the characters will stay with you". [7] Parts of the book take place in Milpitas, California, where Castillo grew up. The title of the novel is a reference to Carlos Bulosan's novel America Is in the Heart . Castillo is openly bisexual and has said it was important for her to write about bisexual women in her novel because of how rarely they are depicted. [3] She is also of Filipino descent.
Her second novel, Moderation, was released on August 5, 2025. [8]
