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There Is No Fire Goddess
The first to be consumed in her were our memories. We forgot her the way we burned things that we wanted consigned to the past. That’s why now we could return to nothing but the grief of other...
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Batbat hi Udan (2009) by T.S. Sungkit, Jr.
With all the lack of rootedness in the Filipino precolonial psyche that proliferates in Philippine local primetime viewing, thanks mostly to the fantaserye hype that’s been going on for several years...
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Bunso (2004) ni Ditsi Carolino
Ito ang bersiyon ko ng #ThrowbackThursday, at dahil Biyernes ngayon, tawagin nating #BinabalikangBiyernes, at sa halip na picture: isang blog entry mula sa lumang blog, tungkol sa panonood ng Bunso ni...
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Soledad’s Sister (2008) by Jose Y. Dalisay, Jr.
Shortlisted to the inaugural Man Asian Literary Prize, Jose Dalisay’s second novel Soledad’s Sister somewhat paved the way for contemporary Filipino novelists based in the Philippines to gain...
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This Earth of Mankind (1980) by Pramoedya Ananta Toer
This Earth of Mankind is the first book in Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s The Buru Quartet, supposedly composed initially as a spoken narrative–and was written only two years later in 1975– while Toer was...
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Timbuktu (1999) by Paul Auster
Page 21: This unlikeliest of fictions. To think of another life. A dog’s. Dreaming of heavens. A beyond: Timbuktu. * In one of Willy’s schizophrenic moments, while talking to Mr. Bones, Henry James and...
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Displaced (2009) by Aneka Rodriguez
July 20, 2009: Aneka and I met at Cello’s in Katipunan so that she could give me a copy of her then newly-released young adult novel-in-verse, Displaced, co-published by Adarna House and Filipinas...
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Ang Aklat Likhaan ng Tula at Maikling Kuwento 1999
Edited by poet Emmanuel Carmelo D. Nadera Jr. and fictionist Jun Cruz Reyes, Ang Aklat Likhaan ng Tula at Maikling Kuwento 1999 was the very first national literary anthology that included my work....
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Zsa Zsa Zaturnnah: Ze Moveeh (2006)
Joel Lamangan’s adaptation of Carlo Vergara’s highly successful graphic novel Ang Kagila-gilalas na Pakikipagsapalaran ni Zsa Zsa Zaturnnah (Visual Print Enterprises, 2002) into a Metro Manila Film...
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Ang Sandali ng mga Mata (2006) by Alvin B. Yapan
I first read this novel as an M.A. thesis called “Kamatayan sa Piling ng mga Lilang Nimpeya” back in 2001. Yapan changed the novel’s title in its eventual publication for it to reflect, perhaps, the...
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Jealousy (1957) by Alain Robbe-Grillet
Somewhere in the middle of the novel the narrator reported that A and Franck had both finished reading this African novel that they’d been discussing for sometime. Robbe-Grillet, via his narrator, made...
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In the Labyrinth (1959) by Alain Robbe-Grillet
Still the trademark Robbe-Grillet obsession with details, with visuals. But towards the end, near the end, the soldier who until then was mostly just the observed, the object of the I’s gaze (who told...
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The Cloven Viscount (1952) by Italo Calvino
Calvino admitted that he wrote this romanzo “almost for fun,” and that he was “not prepared for the outcry that greeted it.” His idea of fun: to thrust a character into the middle of a war between...
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Diary of a Bad Year (2007) by J.M. Coetzee
The novel is made possible by divisions. Coetzee divided the book into two sections called “Strong Opinions” and “Second Diary” in order to differentiate issues extrinsic and intrinsic to the self,...
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My Syllabus for Fiction Writing Class This Semester
I am not supposed to teach this semester: I need to focus on research and creative work. But when Martin (Villanueva) invited me to teach a fiction writing workshop course this semester, how could I...
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Leaf Storm (1955) by Gabriel García Márquez
In Leaf Storm, Gabriel Garcia Marquez introduces Colonel Aureliano Buendia––although we did not actually see him––who supposedly wrote a letter of recommendation for the doctor whose death is at the...
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Borges and the Eternal Orangutans (2000) by Luis Fernando Verissimo
I haven’t heard of Luis Fernando Verissimo until I saw his Borges and the Eternal Orangutans in 2009. I also haven’t read any Brazilian author before (as far as I could remember), but how could I...
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Eight Muses of the Fall is Now Available!
Finally! Yesterday while waiting for the Faculty Day program in Ateneo to begin, I received a text message from Anvil that my complimentary copies of Eight Muses of the Fall would be delivered to my...
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A History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters (1989) by Julian Barnes
After reading two of his novels, The Porcupine (1992) and Flaubert’s Parrot (1984), I’d been quite ambivalent with Julian Barnes. His intellectual register was quite high, but the affective impact was...
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The Non-Existent Knight (1959) by Italo Calvino
To be nothing within a closed helmet and armor (for what are they, then? whom to protect?) is Agilulf’s predicament, obviously quite unlike all the other soldiers (armored, shielded) who mostly dislike...
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