Rising Writers Series: Ingrid Rojas Contreras and Elaine Castillo
Channel: Mechanics' Institute
Date: 2019-03-21

Authors Ingrid Rojas Contreras, Fruit of the Drunken Tree and Elaine Castillo, America is Not the Heart in conversation with Carolina de Robertis.

Fruit of the Drunken Tree by Ingrid Rojas Contreras is a mesmerizing debut set in Colombia at the height Pablo Escobar's violent reign about a sheltered young girl and a teenage maid who strike an unlikely friendship that threatens to undo them both. Seven-year-old Chula and her older sister Cassandra enjoy carefree lives thanks to their gated community in Bogotá, but the threat of kidnappings, car bombs, and assassinations hover just outside the neighborhood walls, where the godlike drug lord Pablo Escobar continues to elude authorities and capture the attention of the nation.
 

America is Not the Heart is the story of an immigrant family. When Hero De Vera arrives in America, she is haunted by the political upheaval in the Philippines and disowned by her parents. Her uncle gives her a fresh start in the Bay Area, and he doesn’t ask about her past. But his daughter – the first American-born daughter in the family–can’t resist asking Hero about her damaged hands.  This is a sprawling, soulful debut about three generations of women in one family struggling to balance the promise of the American dream and the unshakeable grip of history.