The Philippine Center of the International PEN (Poets & Playwrights, Essayists, Novelists) will launch multi-awarded fictionist Charlson Ong’s new collection of short stories on Oct. 29, 5 p.m., at Solidaridad Bookstore, Padre Faura St., Ermita, Manila.
Published by the University of the Philippines Press, “Of That Other Country We Now Speak and Other Stories” consists of stories about peculiar characters—a “troubled father seeking to heal his daughter by confronting private and ancestral ghosts; a former priest regaining his vocation by rescuing a woman from a sex cult; an unrequited lover using a dog as his murder weapon; a corrupt banker seeking redemption among the prayerful inside a booze bar as the ‘end of the world’ approaches,” according to the book’s blurb.
“The denizens of [Ong’s fiction] inhabit a world fraying at the seams, morally adrift. Wounded and compromised, they nonetheless struggle mightily against the ‘dying of the light.’”
Ong has won several major awards, including the Southeast Asian Write Award from the Kingdom of Thailand. His novel, “Blue Angel, White Shadow,” published by the University of Santo Tomas Publishing House, won the National Book Award and was semifinalist in the Man Asian Prize.
Book launch is open to the public.
Call Solidaridad Bookstore at 2541068.
