Language in the Written Word
The Philippines is home to more than a hundred languages (and that’s not counting the number of dialects). But there are only two official languages in the country: English and Filipino. The official languages, especially Filipino (a lot of which is based on the Tagalog language), is always the subject of debate. And both languages […]
Cultural Tourists (Part 2): Publishing and Representation
Wendy Xu has a brilliant and critical assessment of racism in Eleanor and Park, and it’s tempered by Mike Jung’s post on how he can experience both love and be troubled by the novel. The latter is one of the complicated experiences of a reader is who is not privileged, who constantly struggles to find […]
Cultural Tourists (Part 1): Publishing and Representation
One of my goals is to read as diverse literature as possible — at least those by authors outside of the US and the UK (since these two are the major players in the global publishing industry). The unfortunate reality is this: I keep on failing. That’s not to say I don’t occasionally succeed; just […]
Finding Filipinos in Science Fiction and Fantasy
A decade ago, whenever I mentioned Filipinos in science fiction and fantasy, genre fans here and abroad would mention two novels to me: Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers and Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon. Now I haven’t read Cryptonomicon, but I have read Starship Troopers. My initial impression with the book was that here was a book that […]
