Remedios

Joanne Mulcahy is folklorist-in-residence at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon. She also teaches creative nonfiction, ethnographic writing, and humanities classes at Lewis and Clark's Northwest Writing Institute. She is the author of Birth and Rebirth on an Alaskan Island: The Life of an Alutiiq Healer, based on more than a decade of field research with Native Alutiiq women on Kodiak Island. Her awards include fellowships from the Oregon Institute of Literary Arts, the New Letters nonfiction prize, and grants from the British Council, the Alaska Humanities Forum, and the Oregon Council for the Humanities.

“Mulcahy offers us an up-close look at the life of the healer woman. We can't help but be inspired—maybe even healed.” — San Antonio Express-News“Joanne B. Mulcahy has given us a rare glimpse into the life and methods of a curandera, the traditional female healers and leaders of many of our Latin American and Latino comunities. Respectfully, thoughtfully written, and beautifully structured, Remedios allows the reader to participate in these healing encounters. Each chapter is organized around a problem and its accompanying remedio. We learn about curanderismo from the inside out. The book is also a sensitive portrait of an extraordinary woman, Eva Castellanoz, and through her story we learn about the immigration experience from a female perspective. Mulcahy has done for the curandera experience what Carlos Castaneda did for shamanism. The book is itself a remedio, inspiring and healing.” — Julia Alvarez