Edward Abalos, a Filipino immigrant and itinerant farmer in California, wrote Bartered Corn, his first novel, which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. The book captures the drive, sacrifice, and search for belonging among Filipino immigrants in postwar America. His second novel, Outcast Island, follows in the tradition of Steinbeck and Dos Passos—a powerfully realistic portrayal of the Philippines and the haunting disease that exiles one man to a remote leper colony known as Outcast Island.