Haunting, affecting account of war is now in Filipino | Lifestyle.INQ

OCTOBER 27, 2022

Randy Bustamante, Lourdes Reyes Montinola, Anna Maria Tan-Delfin
Randy Bustamante, Lourdes Reyes Montinola, Anna Maria Tan-Delfin

The Bookmark, Inc. has launched “Pagbasag ng Katahimikan,” a translation of Lourdes Montinola’s “Breaking the Silence,” which narrates the “most barbarous episode of the Pacific War.”

Book editor and literary translator Randy Bustamante found the war memoir worth telling because it teaches both history and creative writing. “I used the original memoir in my creative writing classes and it occurred to me that more people-including those for whom English remains a foreign language-need to read this,” Bustamante explained.

“Breaking the Silence” is one of the lesser known versions of the Japanese role in our history, written by Far Eastern University chair emeritus Dr. Lourdes Reyes Montinola, a firsthand witness of Japanese war atrocities.

“I’m glad that the story I wrote a few years back shows importance to today’s time, and I hope more Filipinos read and learn from it,” Montinola said. “It is by remembering the past that we can move forward.”

“Pagbasag ng Katahimikan” is available in bookstores nationwide.

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