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In 1998, we were surprised to find out that there were dozens and dozens of titles of fiction by Pinoys available at Amazon.com. The following list is of books by Filipinos and other authors that we have nejoyed reading.
(Note: If you know some great fiction by Pinoys available only in the Philippines, please e-mail us all about it so we can mention them here, too)
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The Red Tent
by Anita Diamant
Oops! This is not a book published by a Filipina, but I have placed it in the fiction list because I think Filipina women will love this novel about women's trials and challenges, and their strengths that they find from each other and from deep within themselves.
Book Description/Reviews:
The Red Tent takes women’s fiction to another level, a new view of biblical women’s history--told in the first person and told by a woman. Based on the biblical story of Dinah, son of Jacob, the story is told in Dinah’s voice, as she depicts her journey through womanhood in biblical times.
Award-winning author Anita Diamant effectively and passionately lends herself to extraordinary and courageous forms of storytelling in The Red Tent--taking the smallest section of the Book of Genesis that was devoted to Dinah’s story and weaving a tale that details even before and after the events documented in the Bible. We are brought away from what we have learned through religious tradition and contemporary feminine culture, to a world of passion like we have never experienced in this lifetime.
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When the Elephants Dance
by Tess Uriza Holthe
Book Description/Reviews:
From the Publisher
Once in a great while comes a storyteller who can illuminate worlds large and small, magical and true to life. When the Elephants Dance introduces us to the incandescent voice of Tess Uriza Holthe, who sets her striking first novel in the waning days of World War II, as the Japanese and the Americans engage in a fierce battle for possession of the Philippine Islands.
The story is told through the eyes of three narrators, thirteen-year-old Alejandro Karangalan, his spirited older sister Isabelle, and Domingo, a passionate guerilla commander, giving us a perspective on how ordinary people must learn to live in the midst of extraordinary uncertainty, how they must find hope for survival where none seems to exist. They find this hope in the dramatic history of the Philippines and the passion and bravery of its people.
Los Angeles Times wrote:
"Extraordinary...manages to be both wondrously childlike and chilling in its realism."
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Babaylan : An Anthology of Filipina and Filipina American Writers
by editors: Nick Carbo and Eileen Tabios
Book Description/Reviews:
The first U.S. published anthology dedicated solely to the writing of Filipinas and Filipina Americans, Babaylan opens the doors to a vibrant literary culture that encompasses farflung locations, languages and styles. This book presents the works of over 60 authors who come from the Philippines, the U.S.. Australia, Frnace, Singapore, Spain and the United Kingdom. There are also poetry in English translation and original dialects such as Cebuano, Kinaray-a, Ilocano, Tagalog and also in Spanish. Babaylan also includes an Internet resource page and selected bibliography.
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Always Hiding
by Sophia Romero
Sophia Romero publishes her first book in the US. It is about TNT, tago-na-tago, hide-na-hide, or "always hiding."
The San Francisco Chronicle's Melissa de la Cruz says of it:
...a truly elegiac tale of the immigrant experience, and Romero's comedy of manners becomes a heartfelt tale of optimism and survival.
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Awaiting Trespass : A Passion
by Linda Ty-Casper
From 500 Great Books by Women; review by Holly Smith
Linda Ty-Casper examines life in the contemporary Philippines through the behavior and memories of relatives and friends during the three-day wake of Don Severino Gil. ...[Through the characters] a picture emerges of a country ruled by corruption and greed, of people who benefit from inequities and people who want to expose them.
A powerful book, Awaiting Trespass is currently banned in the Philippines. -- For great reviews of books for girls, check out Let's Hear It for the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14. --This text refers to the hardcover edition of this title
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Brown River, White Ocean: An Anthology of Twentieth-Century
Philippine Literature in English
by Luis Francia
From Kirkus Reviews , 07/01/93
... Manila-born poet and writer Francia, an editor at the Village Voice, gathers and validates creative work that has had limited distribution not only here but in Asia. ``In the Philippine context, what is foreign and what is indigenous has always been a tricky and ultimately impossible subject,'' Francia writes in his introduction. ``Filipinos have unconsciously perfected the art of mixing the two up....'' Readers who expect Filipino English to have the unexpected inflections and inventiveness of Indian or Caribbean English will be disappointed: the Filipino writer uses standard American English as a native language, but spices it naturally with words form indigenous and adopted tongues: Tagalog, Spanish, Ilokano, etc. Stories look at unrequited passion (in which the sensual tropical ambiance is at odds with society's rules); village life; the different cultures that have settled in the archipelago--Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, Hindu Indian; and the consequences of military, colonial, and economic occupation. Both poems and stories consider the experience of Filipinos--some intellectual, some humble--in the US. Among the more familiar contributors: Carlos Bulosan, Jos&Mac226; Garc¡a Villa, Jessica Hagedorn, and Ninotchka Rosca. While the prose selected here is more consistent in quality than the poetry, the poems seem more wide-ranging; like the fiction writers, the poets consider love, politics, and metaphysics but move as well into experimentation and the modernist realm. A satisfying and worthwhile project. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Cebu
by Peter Bacho
From Kirkus Reviews , August 1, 1991
It's coming-of-age time in the Philippines, where a young American priest returns to bury his mother, question his faith, find his home, and fall in love. Ben Lucero first visits Cebu, his mother's hometown near Manila, when he travels there for her funeral....
Ben discovers the forces and events that shaped his family and formed the silent, unknown background of his life: the brutality of the Japanese occupation, the poverty and clannishness of Filipino life, the weird syncretism of the indigenous Catholicism, the pervasive corruption of the island authorities. He flees to the security of his native Seattle, but there he finds himself haunted by his recollections of Cebu, and impelled by circumstance to resolve the doubts he has experienced regarding his faith and identity.
Bacho writes with a light touch, lending an ambiguity to his narration that can be frustrating but is more usually intriguing. His characters and situations reflect a maturity rarely found in first novels, and his ending, in its refusal to provide a simple resolution, succeeds in adding a new depth to an already-intricate construction. A sensitive--and convincing--debut. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the hardcover edition of this title
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Dark Blue Suit: And Other Stories
by Peter Bacho
The New York Times Book Review, Anderson Tepper
A middle-aged Philippine-American son pauses thoughtfully at a cluster of graves in a Seattle cemetery: alongside the body of his enigmatic father lie several other colorful characters from the same generation of Philippine immigrants who came to America in the 1920's and 30's.... In rough-hewn and wistful style, Bacho's stories bring to life the hardscrabble years of the first wave of migrant laborers--and capture as well the ambivalence of their American-born children, who come of age during the 1960's. Throughout these tales of embattled lives, there is the reminder of the original immigrants' dream--shiny blue suits, but worn and faded over time.
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Dead Season : A Story of Murder and Revenge on the Phillipine Island of Negros
by Alan Berlow
Amazon.com
A series of murders in the late 1980s on the small Philippine island of Negros prompts journalist Alan Berlow to examine the country's recent struggles toward democracy. His investigation plunges him into the morass of local and national politics at the end of the Marcos regime on through the disappointing presidency of Corazon Aquino. As Berlow comes closer to solving the murders, his story conveys the drama and character of a nation as it struggles to find focus in politics and realize its dreams.
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Flippin : Filipinos on America
by Luis Francia, Eric Gamalinda, editors
Here are Filipino and Filipino-American wrtiers telling of their lives in their own words. Here are storeis of passion and betrayal, home and exile, the politics of the self and a nation in search of itself. Here are also poems of power and beauty. Find familiar figures---the Marcoses, teenage gangs, game shows, rock star clones---as well as characters and thems of every stripe and hue. Altogether these works provide a deeper image of the philippines and of Filipinos in America, as seen by some of the best writers from both sides of the world.
Just some of the writers with works in this book: Bienvenido Santos, Jessica Hagedorn, Eric Gamalinda, Gina Apostol, Carlos Bulusan, Luis Cabalquinto, Rene Navarro, Gemino Abad, Luis H. Francia, Jaime Jacinto.
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The Gangster of Love
by Jessica Hagedorn, Jessica Haedorn
Amazon.com's Synopsis:
Jessica Hagedorn received high praise for her debut novel, Dogeaters, which took place in Manila. Her second book shows that Dogeaters was no fluke. The Gangster of Love opens in Manila but the action quickly moves to San Francisco and then New York before turning full circle. Hagedorn's worlds are peopled with a maelstrom of jostling, exuberant characters. The focal point of this storm of humanity is Raquel (Rocky) Rivera [and the] the arc of her journey from Manila to the United States and back [which] will include a boyfriend...a daughter...a flock of drag queens...and [an assortment of odd] jobs. Original, exhilarating and electric, The Gangster of Love takes a fresh look at family and questions of race, culture and identity. --This text refers to the hardcover edition of this title
The New York Times Book Review, Francine Prose
For all its heady originality and up-to-the-minute hipness, The Gangsters of Love functions almost like an Old Master painting... --This text refers to the hardcover edition of this title
Entertainment Weekly
Singer Rocky Rivera is torn between a never-quite-successful band and an erratic family in this lively novel.
Also nominated for The Irish Times International Fiction Prize
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Ghosts of Manila
by James Hamilton-Paterson
Synopsis
A wasteland city whose factory processes the skeletons of derelicts for science harbors four people--a television journalist, an archaeologist, an embattled and poor Filipina, and a corrupt cop--who reflect on unresolved pasts and obsess upon the world around them.
Reviews:
From Booklist , 10/15/94
In this deeply disturbing novel, Hamilton-Paterson paints a haunting, violent tale of anarchy and depravity, set in a city infamous for its brutality. The story begins in a factory where skeletons are assembled from the discarded bodies of vagrants and victims of police death squads.....The characters interact with one another to relate the stories of their lives--tales of pain, corruption, and yet stoic courage. The fates of an anthropologist...a fake priest...a basically good policeman...and a squatter family...are entwined as those people struggle to an understanding of life and destiny. The eloquent prose compels the reader onward despite the inherent harshness of the subject and masterfully evokes the anguish of this beautiful, scarred land. Kathleen Hughes. Copyright© 1994, American Library Association. All rights reserved
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Ginseng and Other Tales from Manila
by Marianne Villanueva
From the back cover:
Set in the Philippines, these beautiful and poignant stories reveal characters trapped in extremity in urban violence or the crushing poverty of the provinces. The reader comes away with new insights into human nature and the valor and courage of the Philippine people.
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The Last Time I Saw Mother
by Arlene J. Chai
Women's Studies Editor's Recommended Book
When an oblique letter summons Caridad from Australia to her mother's side in the steamy Philippines, she travels there fearing loss. And loss she finds, but one that finally throws light on the whispers that dogged her life in this land where Spanish, Chinese, and Filipino cultures slap against one another. "The past defines us as much as the present," says Caridad. "Because mine was missing, I never felt whole." Four women--Caridad, her mother Thelma, aunt Emma, and cousin Ligaya--piece together the puzzle of a life begun in wartime. Their vantage points differ, but their stories are silver-tongued and spellbinding even as Ligaya's bitterness stains the pages and Emma's long, mute acceptance of fate's cruelty rings false. Wrapped around Caridad's story is a far bigger one of the years when the Japanese occupied the Philippines and American liberation forces decimated the country. --This text refers to the paperback edition of this title
The New York Times Book Review, Betsy Groban
... provides rare insight into the three cultures--Spanish, Chinese and Filipino--that coexist in the Philippines ... an often lyrical and always tough-minded debut.
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Her Wild American Self: Short Stories
by Evelina Galang
From Kirkus Reviews , 02/01/96
Debut collection of 12 consummately crafted but somewhat lifeless stories exploring the Filipina-American experience. These pieces by American-born Galang, some of which have appeared in magazines like Amerasia Journal, New Voices, and Quarterly West, offer insight into an immigrant group overshadowed by more familiar Asian immigrants, though their native land's relationship with the US has been long and close. The contrast between the long-held admiration for things American and the actual cost of living the American dream is a recurring theme here. In ``Rose Colored,'' a visit to a dancer cousin, Mina, who has embraced her immigrant heritage, suggests to successful banker Rose that she may have tried too hard to escape her own past. In ``Talk to Me, Milagros'' and ``Our Fathers,'' respectively, Nelda, a young Filipina-American, at first envies Milagros, the daughter of recently arrived immigrants, then witnesses Milagros's hurt as her father, an attorney in the Philippines, tries to adjust to being a busboy in the US; and a young girl watches as death disrupts her father's long struggle to bring his parents to America. Other tales explore the additional tensions of being female in families that still honor old country ways and ideals. In the title story, ``wild'' Mona is told the cautionary tale of her unmarried aunt Augustina, who was sent back to the Philippines pregnant. In two others, a woman is distressed to observe her brother turning her niece into a traditional Filipina woman (``Miss Teenage Sampaguita''); and a single woman faces family hostility when she returns home pregnant to visit her dying mother (``Contravida''). In another notable piece, ``Filming Sausage,'' the protagonist, in charge of a film's continuity, is harassed by the director for being both female and Asian. A welcome addition to the Filipina-American corpus, though no story here, despite Galang's best intentions, ever quite captures that long lingering sense of difference and dissonance that is so much the immigrant experience. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Midwest Book Review
This debut short story collection provides stories about different women involved with ideals and searches for love, careers, and ethnic understanding. The Filipina American experience forms the foundation for these intense writings, which probe modern Filipina concerns and lives.
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When the Rainbow Goddess Wept
by Cecilia Manguerra Brainard
Amazon.com's Synopsis:
An exciting new Asian-American voice brings Filipino culture and history to light as a young girl comes of age during World War II. Set against the backdrop of the Japanese invation of the Philippines in 1941, this brilliant novel weaves myth and legend together with the suffering and tragedies of the Filipino people.
Los Angeles Times wrote:
"Extraordinary...manages to be both wondrously childlike and chilling in its realism."
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List of Books on Fiction
