With the release of Ladlad I, editors J. Neil Garcia and Danton Remoto have challenged oppressive and homophobic ideologies. Now on its second installment, Ladlad 2 delivers more insights about gay life in the Philippines. It delves deeper on the closeted lives of gays—finding lifelong partner, seeking happiness, and accepting one's true self.

A collection of award-winning writer and activist Danton Remoto's short essays on popular culture, politics, and other important and controversial national issues. Remoto has taught English and Literature for more than twenty years and is a multimedia personality: as host of a radio and a TV show and a columnist for a daily and an online news portal. He founded the Ladlad Party List in 2003, whose accreditation was refused by the Commission on Elections. This led to the historic decision a...

Being gay is not a choice. It is really detrimental for someone living in a third-world country. How do gays cope up with society’s constraints? How do they live their lives to pthe fullest?Edited by J. Neil Garcia and Danton Remoto, Ladlad: An Anthology of Philippine Gay Writing, is an anthology of poems, stories, essays, and plays about gay experience in the Philippines. It is a collective effort made by Filipino members of LGBT to celebrate being their true selves.

Riverrun is a rite-of-passage novel in the life of a young gay man growing up in a colorful and chaotic dictatorship. Shaped in the form of a memoir, it glides from childhood to young adulthood in chapters written like flash fiction and vignettes, along with a recipe, a feature article, excerpts from poems, and vivid songs.

With the release of Ladlad I, editors J. Neil Garcia and Danton Remoto have challenged oppressive and homophobic ideologies. Now on its second installment, Ladlad 2 delivers more insights about gay life in the Philippines. It delves deeper on the closeted lives of gays—finding lifelong partner, seeking happiness, and accepting one's true self.

The success of the Ladlad I and Ladlad II gave leeway for editors J. Neil Garcia and Danton Remoto to collect more captivating gay stories across the country. Now on its third anthology, Ladlad III gives new light and angle to gay writing in the Philippines.Packed with diverse stories, poems, and essays, this new companion to the series brings reimagination and modernity.

Lope K Santos’ novel, Banaag at Sikat, is a love story framed in the context of a political tale. Published in 1906, it became the fountain head of social realism in the Tagalog novel and hailed as Asia’s first proletariat novel. It revolves around Delfin, a poor man in love with Meni, a capitalist’s daughter. Delfin is a socialist while Felipe, his friend, is an anarchist. Delfin wants the citizens to have more rights in business and property relations. He believes that society could be c...

Mando Plaridel is the lead character in this novel of social consciousness. His character combines the qualities found in Simoun and Ibarra, the two lead characters in national hero Jose Rizal’s novels: Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo. Ibarra is the passive character in Rizal’s novels, while Simoun is the active propagandist who wakes up the people from their centuries-old sleep under Spanish colonialism.After the war, society begins to know him as the brave editor of the Kampilan ne...

One of the New York Times 100 Best Books of the 21st CenturyThe world just goes along. Nothing much matters, you know? I mean really matters. but then sometimes, just for a second, you get this grace, this belief that it does matter, a whole lot.With an introduction from Lydia DavisLucia Berlin’s stories in A Manual for Cleaning Women make for one of the most remarkable unsung collections in twentieth-century American fict...

‘A dazzling and virtuosic adventure’ Joseph O’Connor, author of Star of the SeaInternationally Bestselling Winner of the Man Asian Literary Prize 2008‘With Ilustrado, Miguel Syjuco obliges us to remake the canons of our great classics of contemporary literature. Ilustrado is, literally, a masterpiece’ Alberto ManguelIt begins with a body. One anonymous winter day, the corpse of Crispin Salvador is pulled from the Hudson River. Gone is the controver...

‘Her diamond prose sparkles so brightly and cuts so deeply’ Celeste NgShortlisted for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham PrizeShortlisted for the John Leonard PrizeWinner of the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award for FictionWith nine globe-trotting, unforgettable stories, Mia Alvar vividly gives voice to the exiles, emigrants and wanderers of the Filipino diaspora. From teachers...

Some years ago, the author of these columns was sitting in a Zen monastery in California, blissfully meditating, when someone slipped a folded note, underneath his cushion. The note had the word Help, and no other information, except for an email address. When he wrote to the email address, to inquire as to what Help, exactly, was needed, he received only the response, Thank you. Two days later he received a second email advising him that someone of importance had greatly enjoyed reading t...