Book Feature: Cuentos Hispanofilipinos/Hispano-Philippine Stories

CEBU, Philippines - The newest book in the Cebuano literary scene is a collaboration by friends Edmundo Farolán and Paulina Constancia Lee. What makes this book unique is that the stories in the collection are written in both Spanish and English, in facing texts.

Farolán’s three stories are part of a short novel on the lives of Don Francisco de Paula and his family, published in Spanish as Nostálgica in 1996. They will form part of still another novel that the author plans to complete in two or three years.

The stories, which the author calls semi-fictitious, are taken from narratives that older members of a family are wont to tell the younger ones. As the title Nostálgica suggests, they take us to the past, the world of the Spanish elite at the turn of the century north of Manila, without artifice nor trace of any of the modern trends in fiction writing inspired by postmodernism or postcolonialism. They are straightforward accounts focusing on family and friends, how they survived two wars, maintained their businesses and still preserved ties with the larger family in the homeland.     

The dialogues clearly show the local setting as the characters use Ilocano expressions like wen gayam (mao gyud in Cebuano) and enjoy native dishes like pinakbet and dinengdeng. We see them moving about in their old stone houses like Casa Gorordo and taking part in the Lenten procession. They exchange photos just as they retell stories, of both the comic and horror types, although one wishes such stories were given full body instead of just described.

In time for the celebration of Women’s Month this March, the book carries four stories written by a Cebuana, better known as the painter Paulina Constancia, who has already a collection of poems also in English and Spanish, Open Arms/Brazos Abiertos (Vancouver, 2003). 

The delightful and colorful images on Paulina’s canvases resonate in the four stories in this book: “El Chino asiste a una misa católica/The Chinese man goes to mass”, “El mono y el cientifico/The monkey and the scientist”, “Tatang va a Nueva York/Tatang goes to New York”, and “El Apóstol/The Apostle”. These are not consciously crafted pieces of short fiction that need to be workshopped, but are engaging tales created by the author. “El Chino” is saved from magic realism by the unmistakable sounds and sights of Carcar, while “El mono” sounds like any traditional folk tale or fable were it not for the modern laboratory setting. The last two stories are modern tales involving the crossing of the Pacific, by Tatang from Pangasinan to New York and by the gay Frannie from San Francisco to Cebu. In these two the motivating force is not entertainment but a more thoughtful view of the idea of dislocations.

This wonderful book was launched by the Women in Literary Arts-Cebu (WILA) yesterday at Fully-Booked Ayala Center.