Join us for a reading in celebration of Gina Apostol’s critically-acclaimed new novel Insurrecto - one of Publisher Weekly’s ten best books of 2018, “witty and stylish” according to NPR, a “bravura performance” hailed the NY Times and Asian Review of Books - following the journey of two women, an American filmmaker and Filipino translator, and their dueling accounts of a dark and forgotten massacre in Samar during the Philippine-American War. This special afternoon showcases stories located in the heart of the Philippines and the United States, illustrating the often untold and intertwined histories of the two nations. Gina Apostol will be joined by Bay Area-based author Elaine Castillo who will read from her novel America is Not the Heart. Apostol and Castillo will be in conversation following the readings.
This event is co-presented by San Francisco Public Library Excelsior Branch and PAL / The Pilipinx American Library, a moveable library and programming platform dedicated exclusively to diasporic Filipinx narratives.
Speakers
Before Gina Apostol’s fourth novel, Insurrecto, hit the shelves, Publishers’ Weekly named it one of the Ten Best Books of 2018. Insurrecto was also named Buzzfeed’s Best Books of 2018 and Autostraddle’s 50 Best Feminist Books of 2018, among many other Best Lists. Her third book, Gun Dealers’ Daughter, won the 2013 PEN/Open Book Award and was shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Prize. Her first two novels, Bibliolepsy and The Revolution According to Raymundo Mata, both won the Juan Laya Prize for the Novel (Philippine National Book Award). She lives in New York City and western Massachusetts and grew up in Tacloban, Philippines. She teaches at the Fieldston School in New York City.
Elaine Castillo was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. She graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a degree in Comparative Literature. She is a Voices of Our Nation Arts Foundation Fellow, and her writing can be found in Freeman’s, Lit Hub, The Rumpus, Taste Magazine, Bon Appetit, Electric Literature and elsewhere. Her short film, A Mukbang, was commissioned by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s Open Space. America Is Not the Heart is her first novel and has been nominated for the Elle Award, the Center for Fiction Prize, the Aspen Words Prize, and the Northern California Independent Booksellers Book Award.