Olivia Castillo Wins the Golden Pen Award at The Literary Week 2025 for Daughter of the Boricua

The Literary Week 2025 proudly honored Olivia Castillo with the Golden Pen Award, recognizing her outstanding contribution to historical fiction through her acclaimed novel Daughter of the Boricua. The award celebrates authors whose work combines literary excellence, cultural depth, and powerful storytelling, a distinction Castillo embodies with remarkable clarity.

Author Olivia Castillo won The Golden Pen Award

Daughter of the Boricua is the second book in Castillo’s epic trilogy, Songs of the Boricua, and a finalist for the 2022 Reader’s Favorite Award as well as the 2022 Literary Titan Silver Award winner. The novel continues the award-winning legacy of Song of the Boricua, expanding its scope across generations, history, and identity.

At the center of Daughter of the Boricua are three generations of women, each navigating love, power, and survival against the backdrop of Puerto Rico’s evolving political and cultural landscape.

• Liani, a Taíno woman in early 20th-century Puerto Rico, is torn between her love for a Spanish officer and her loyalty to her ancestral roots during the transition from Spanish rule to American control.

• Isabella, a descendant of Aztec royalty and Hernán Cortés, experiences the Puerto Rican diaspora in mainland United States, confronting racism, abuse, and the long road to reclaiming love and agency.

• Josie, living in the modern era, wrestles with inherited trauma, clairvoyant abilities, and the challenge of balancing tradition with independence as a Puerto Rican woman in the 21st century.

Binding their stories together is a centuries-old curse, first spoken by Moctezuma and later reinforced by a Puerto Rican jabao witch, a haunting metaphor for generational trauma, colonial inheritance, and the enduring struggle for freedom and self-determination. The Golden Pen Award at Literary Week 2025 honors authors who elevate literature through cultural storytelling, historical insight, and emotional resonance. Olivia Castillo’s work was selected for its ability to intertwine personal narratives with Puerto Rico’s broader historical and political journey, from the Spanish-American War of 1898 to the island’s modern-day challenges as a U.S. commonwealth.

Through Daughter of the Boricua, Castillo poses enduring questions:Are some histories destined to repeat themselves? Can love survive inherited trauma? And is Puerto Rico forever confined to a gilded cage, or capable of reclaiming its voice?

Olivia Castillo is a New York City native and graduate of the prestigious Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts. She later studied graphic design at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, a background that strongly influences her visual and emotionally immersive storytelling style. Introduced to literature at a young age, Castillo grew up inspired by authors such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Steinbeck, Leo Tolstoy, and the Brontë sisters. After completing a UCLA online writing course, she committed to writing historical fiction rooted in her Puerto Rican heritage, aiming to bring awareness to colonial history, cultural displacement, and social injustice.

Her debut novel, Song of the Boricua, won the Reader’s Favorite Bronze Medal for Historical Fiction (2019) and led to appearances on the award-winning Kelly Show and The Soul Suite radio program. Daughter of the Boricua further cemented her reputation, earning multiple international literary accolades. An entrepreneur, mother of three, and grandmother of two, Castillo continues to write while balancing family life, travel, and painting. She is currently completing the final book in the trilogy, Heart of the Boricua.

Olivia Castillo’s Golden Pen Award win at The Literary Week 2025 serves as a powerful affirmation of storytelling rooted in heritage, history, and resilience. Her work not only honors Puerto Rican voices across generations but also strengthens Literary Week’s mission to spotlight authors whose stories matter, culturally, politically, and emotionally.