Solidaridad has been a special part of my life in Manila for more than two decades. Its presence is very unassuming and I was witness to all the changes to the establishments around it, but the bookstore stayed the same. I’m proud to have brought my friends there, and also former foreign co-workers who wanted… Read More Solidaridad: A Soliloquy
What author doesn’t dream of writing a book that inspires a movie, now available to stream on Netflix? F.H. Batacan’s SMALLER AND SMALLER CIRCLES (written 26 years ago) not only pioneered a genre (crime fiction) and won the Palanca and the National Book Award, but also got picked up by Soho Press for international publication.… Read More Rage Against the Machine: F.H. Batacan Shows How One Can Merge Anger with Grace
(Photo credit: The Playbook Club) To watch a show both written and produced by young theater artists mostly in their twenties is a refreshing theatergoing experience. There’s that fearless idealism, which is the hallmark of college plays, merged with the growing awareness of the callous, grown-up world beyond the walls of sheltered universities. But then… Read More First Love, Last Love: PBC’s Twin Bill is Social Commentary Masked as Rom-Coms
“The status quo did not mean peace.” Glenn Diaz’s 2022 novel about a middle-aged teacher fleeing her violent past has been picked up by Tilted Axis Press, as well as shortlisted for the Novel Prize in 2020. It is many things: a literary crime novel, a concise history of Philippine contemporary history from the time… Read More Yñiga: A Literary Crime Novel that Tackles the Past and Future of Being Filipino
Sunlight and dust motes flooded the air as I cracked open the pages of Kenneth Yu’s sophomore short story collection. His earlier book featured a lot of stories that would comfortably be classified as horror. As a result, this reviewer purposefully read this second collection of stories during the day, expecting that it would have… Read More The Greatest Fight of Sunny Granada: Speculatively Hopeful Filipino Fiction
“This too is a kind of law… not their rigid codes carved in stone, but the fluid law of power that shapes all things like water wearing away rock. You are what every rajah must be – friend and strategist, brother and player of the great game.” Rajah Versus Conquistador by Kahlil Corazo is that… Read More Rajah Versus Conquistador: Humabon and the Why of History Resurrected
If you’re lucky, you get treated to a tarot reading when you have your book signed by Yvette Tan, whom fans are calling “The Queen of Philippine Horror.” Tan then explained what the three cards meant, then inscribed the book with the message of the fates, accompanied by her red stamp. (In this reader’s case,… Read More Insect Hag: Creepy Crawlies and Cultural Preservation
A son of Manila, my late father owned an imposing hardcover brown volume which he treasured and encouraged his teenaged children to read. We used the busyness of youth as an excuse not to when really, we were intimidated by its thickness. The book has mysteriously vanished, to our belated sorrow. So it was with… Read More Manila, My Manila: Glories of the Past Resurrected
Author Laurel Flores Fantauzzo describes this book as the product of a haunting. The 2009 murders of film journalists Alexis Tioseco and Nika Bohinc moved her so deeply that she spent the next six years (eight with revisions) writing about the couple. What was originally meant as an academic thesis became a finalist in the… Read More The First Impulse: Immortalizing Lives and Loves
F.H. Batacan’s newest book comes 26 years after she wrote the award-winning novel Smaller and Smaller Circles, which was hailed as a crime classic and turned into a 2017 film starring Nonie Buencamino and Sid Lucero. Set in the same Manila as her previous book, the short story collection manages to be both very similar… Read More Accidents Happen: Angry Stories that Thirst for Justice
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