MANILA, Philippines—Recah Trinidad, the respected and widely read sports columnist of the Inquirer, will launch on Wednesday his second book, “Tales from My Lost River,” a novel that will share with its readers an intimate, unexplored side of the author.

The book follows in the footsteps of Trinidad’s earlier work, the celebrated “Pacific Storm,” which digs deep into the myth of Filipino ring icon Manny Pacquiao. “Pacific Storm” won the national book award in 2007.

“Tales from My Lost River” will be launched at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Executive (Blue) Building of the Mandaluyong City Hall Complex on Boni Avenue.

The multiawarded Mandaluyong Children’s Chorus will be singing for the guests.

In the book’s foreword, poet-novelist Erwin Castillo prepares readers, especially those who have made Trinidad’s Bare Eye column a reading habit, for a refreshing surprise.

Castillo wrote that Trinidad, “for those in the know, is much more than a veteran sportswriter and incisive social commentator. He is an award-winning poet of depth and skill.”

The book, Castillo continued, “is a fictional memory of Recah’s stretch of the river Pasig in Mandaluyong, its changing community and the impending doom of its geography.

“Guardian and sentinel to its bucolic past is the old man, Itay Kayong, lamed by personal loss, and leaning on his grandson Francisco, a green sapling pressed by love and necessity into a cane.

“These two journeys among memorable characters—simple folk, as well as powerful politicians and celebrities—through wrenching events including war and betrayal, up and down the tides and eddies of time and river.”

The book traces its birth to a short story Trinidad wrote in 1963, “Death in the River.” That award-winning piece was later published in the Free Press.

“After being retired, I needed to do something,” Trinidad joked about his first novel.

The book “took me over a year of stolen time to finish,” Trinidad wrote in Wednesday’s “Bare Eye” column, where he provides additional information on the novel and its launch.

The book is priced P500.