They say those who laugh hardest are those who have tasted more of life’s bitterness. It’s as if, having known shadow, they revel in the light all the more. The same could be said for the author of “Even Ducks Get Liver Cancer.” Wilfredo Liangco is an oncologist (in layman’s terms, a cancer doctor), one… Read More Even Ducks Get Liver Cancer: Stories as Medicine for the Soul
Few books have forewords that embrace its reader in an emotional chokehold, already sniffing through a mist of tears. This is such a book. Veteran journalist Atom Araullo introduces his powerful collection of eight articles and accompanying photos as “stories that don’t shout, but linger.” These are long-term issues from all over the Philippines and… Read More A View From The Ground: An Intimate Look at Filipino Reality
Fil-Am author Elaine Castillo’s second novel is so woke, this reader had to read every other sentence twice to fully parse out the pointed inequalities marking even the most seemingly innocent exchanges. To Castillo, the pen is a sword, the page a battlefield in a story that is part-romance, part social critique with a dash… Read More Moderation: A Cynical Love Story
THE VANISHED (the English translation of author Chuckberry Pascual’s “Ang Nawawala”) has introduced this reader to one of the most unforgettable characters to ever grace the page. When things keep getting lost in a particular barangay, there’s only one person to call. Our hero/ine Bree solves seven capers in these tragicomic short stories (alternatively seen… Read More The Vanished: Mystery Meets Social Criticism
THE SECRET LIVES OF OFWs has an irresistible premise. What if the Filipino migrant worker is actually a mythological creature, with enough supernatural power to take revenge against abusive foreigners? Events creative (and former OFW) Jet Tagasa’s first book is a collection of eight horror stories, each featuring a kababayan who happens to be more… Read More The Secret Lives of OFWs: Here Be Monsters
(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
To read the English translation of filmmaker and Ateneo college professor Alvin Yapan’s book Worship the Body (Sambahin Ang Katawan) is to be awash in a sea of images. Of clothing revealing nakedness (between man and wife, and man and fellow man). Of sea and sky, lands urban and rural. While acclaim and praise follow… Read More Worship The Body: What Price Love?
My second book by Catherine Dellosa had me sobbing uncontrollably in the last couple of chapters, making my Sunday morning coffee a bit more salty than usual. It also has one of the most striking opening paragraphs I’ve ever come across: “Fate is fixed, love is a thunderstorm, and Cheetos are mankind’s greatest invention since… Read More The Summer of Letting Go: Catherine Dellosa Guides Us How to Deal with Loss and Love
In Filipino folklore, there are creatures that are reviled as often as they are revered. Among them, you have some big baddies like the manananggal (a winged shapeshifter that can detach its upper torso from its lower body and feeds on unborn babies), the mangkukulam (a witch for hire should you need to place a… Read More Get Cozy with the Supernatural: FLY BY NIGHT AND OTHER STORIES
Now that THE PREYING BIRDS (Mga Ibong Mandaragit) by Amado V. Hernandez has been translated into English by Danton Remoto for Penguin Random House SEA in 2022, this reader finally got the chance to read a book I’ve been hearing about for so long, by an author recognized as a National Artist for Literature. What… Read More The Preying Birds (Mga Ibong Mandaragit) is a Prayer Across Generations
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