TRAVELS (and more) WITH CECILIA BRAINARD: Chapter of The Newspaper Widow in Philippine PEN Journal

Saturday, August 7, 2021

Chapter of The Newspaper Widow in Philippine PEN Journal

"The Island of the Living Dead" a chapter from The Newspaper Widow, is part of the Philippine PEN Journal HEALING, edited by Herminio Beltran, Jr., PEN International 2014.

This particular chapter is about the Leper Island, Culyo, in the novel.

You can read it here: page 28 or 15 in this link http://www.philippinepen.ph/Journal.pdf

Cecilia Manguerra Brainard's novel, THE NEWSPAPER WIDOW, is a literary mystery set in the Philippines in 1909, shortly after the Spaniards lost to the Americans, and the Americans occupied the Philippines. The widow Ines and her friend the French seamstress Melisande solve the crime of the dead priest in the creek in order to free the son of Ines from jail. Inspired by her great-grandmother who was the first woman publisher in the Philippines, Brainard has written a character-driven novel that raises interesting and complicated questions about morality and justice while the protagonist searches for the priest's true killer. What begins as a murder mystery transforms into something greater as love, loyalty and friendship are tested and refined. Shortlisted for the Inaugural Cirilo F. Bautista Prize for the Novel, Brainard's novel is a captivating read.

Find the book in Amazon or Lazada or Shopee. Eastwind Books of Berkeley also has copies.

tags: leprosy, leper island, leper colony #philippinesbooks #philippinesnovels #philippinesfiction

Cecilia Manguerra Brainard

Cecilia Manguerra Brainard's official website is ceciliabrainarddotcom. She is the award-winning author and editor of 22 books, including When the Rainbow Goddess Wept, The Newspaper Widow, Magdalena, Selected Stories, Vigan and Other Stories, and more. She edited Growing Up Filipino 1, 2, & 3, Fiction by Filipinos in America, Contemporary Fiction by Filipinos in America, and other books.. Her work has been translated into Finnish and Turkish; and many of her stories and articles have been widely anthologized. Cecilia has received many awards, including a California Arts Council Fellowship in Fiction, a Brody Arts Fund Award, a Special Recognition Award for her work dealing with Asian American youths, as well as a Certificate of Recognition from the California State Senate, 21st District, and the Outstanding Individual Award from her birth city, Cebu, Philippines. She has lectured and performed at UCLA, USC, University of Connecticut, University of the Philippines, PEN, Shakespeare & Company in Paris, and many others. She has served in the Board of literary arts groups such as PEN, PAWWA (Pacific Asian American Writers West), among others.