Cecilia Brainard Books Highlighted for Frankfurt Book Fair - Short List

Short List Cecilia Brainard Books Highlighted 

CECILIA MANGUERRA BRAINARD

Fiction Writer-Editor-Publisher

https://ceciliabrainard.com

Cbrainard@gmail.com; cbrainard@aol.com

BIO:

Cecilia Manguerra Brainard is the author and editor of over a dozen books. Cecilia’s writings can also be found in Positively Filipino, CNN, Town and Country, and more. Her work has been widely anthologized and has been translated into Turkish and Finnish.

Cecilia also runs a small press, PALH (Philippine American Literary House) which publishes select fine Filipino and FilAm books, such as Growing Up Filipino, Fiction by Filipinos in America, and more.

For her books and literary work, she has been awarded a 40^th National Book Award, an Outstanding Individual Award from Cebu, a California Arts Council Fellowship, a Brody Arts Fund Fellowship, several travel grants from the US Embassy, an Amazing Alumni Achiever’s Award from Maryknoll College, a Special recognition Award from the Los Angeles (California) Board of Education, and more.

She has taught at the Writers Program at UCLA Extension, the University of Southern California, and UCLA. She gives talks, lectures, and literary readings at universities and arts/literary centers such as the UP Cebu, Cebuano Studies Center, University of Santo Tomas, Los Angeles Library, PEN, Paris Litup, and many more.

The Cebuano Studies Center and the National Commission for Arts and Culture produced a documentary video entitled: The Cebuana in the World: Cecilia Manguerra Brainard Writing Out of Cebu.

She has served as the Executive Board member of PEN USA West, and she represented PEN in international meetings in Barcelona and Santiago de Compostela. She also served as an officer in literary arts groups such as the Midnight Special Cultural Center, Pacific Asian American Women Writers West, Philippine American Women Writers and Arts, and the Arts & Letters at the Cal State University in LA.

SHORT STORY COLLECTION

SELECTED SHORT STORIES BY CECILIA MANGUERRA BRAINARD

Winner 40^th National Book Award and Cirilo Bautista Prize for the Novel

Finalist Gintong Aklat Award

Cecilia Manguerra Brainard’s short stories cover not just the history of the Philippines – Spanish and American colonial rule, the bloody Marcos era, the high price of fighting for political and economic freedom – but also the deeply moving hesitations and complexities of the human heart: the loves and longings and losses that shape and haunt a life, the sensuality and desires that rip apart the fabric of social life, the intricacies of girlhood and female friendship, the confrontation of cultures, the loneliness and courage of Filipino-Americans and others who have left their homelands and the idea of home. Beautifully written, masterfully crafted, these stories are at once heart-breaking, entertaining, and profoundly humane — very difficult to put down, impossible to forget. ~ Reine Arcache Melvin, NovelistAuthor: Cecilia Manguerra Brainard

 Author: Cecilia Manguerrra Brainard

ISBN: 978-971-506-8710 (University of Santo Tomas Publishing House)

ISBN: 978-1-954716-01-9 (PALH)

NOVEL

THE NEWSPAPER WIDOW

Finalist for the 37^th National Book Award

Shortlisted for the Inaugural Cirilo F. Bautista Prize for the Novel

This 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 the French seamstress Melisande solve the crime of the dead priest in the creek to free the son of Ines from jail.

“What follows is part detective story and part historical fiction, set in the Philippines seven years after the conclusion of the Philippine-American War (1899–1902) that cemented U.S. occupation of the islands. The mystery elements are competently plotted, and the characters appealing, and there’s a charming long-distance romance, with a hint of another yet to come. The book’s signal virtue, though, is its bighearted look at Filipino culture and society in 1909. ~ David Keymer, Library Journal

Author: Cecilia Manguerrra Nrainard

ISBN: 978-971-506-811-6 (University of Santo Tomas Publishing House)

ISBN: 078-1-053716-14-9 (PALH)

Greek and Serbian rights sold 

For Translations rights, contact the author cbrainard@gmail.com

 

NOVEL

MAGDALENA

Rarely have I read such exquisite command of storytelling as I see in the pages of this novel. Here she uses the backdrop of a Japanese-occupied Philippines to maximum effect, devastating the reader’s emotions without giving any quarter nor taking any prisoners. You die inside and come to life again when the feelings of hope hit you—and they will. ~ Alma Anonas-Carpio, Philippine Graphic

Expertly written by Cecilia Manguerra Brainard … Magdalena is set in the chaotic backdrop of twentieth century East Asia. A romantic, powerful tale of three generations of Filipino women, written with a close eye on the terrors of war and the Japanese invasion of the Philippines during World War II, Magdalena is an intense, involving, highly recommended saga that documents author Cecilia Manguerra Brainard as a gifted author with a mastery of storytelling that will keep the reader’s total attention and engagement from first page to last! ~ Midwest Review

 Author: Cecilia Manguerra Brainard

ISBN: 978-971-506-801-7 (University of Santo Tomas Publishing House)

ISBN: 978-1-953716-11-8 (PALH)

Greek rights sold

 

NOVEL

WHEN THE RAINBOW GODDESS WEPT 

Cecilia Brainard’s debut novel is the tearful, seldom-told story of the Japanese invasion of the Philippines during World War II as seen through the eyes of a young Filipino girl. The many hardships that 9‑year-old Yvonne Macaraig and her family are faced with teach her the value of hope and endurance…

Brainard’s wonderful novel shows how war brings out the best and the worst in people as it describes both the atrocities and the heroics that befall her characters. The novel’s theme, the vast cost of war on the human spirit is illustrated well by Yvonne’s tragic loss of innocence. In the words of her grandfather, Lolo Peping: “Before man sinned, he was innocent. Man’s original sin wasn’t eating the forbidden fruit; it was Cain’s murder of his brother. ~ Associated Press

 Author: Cecilia Manguerra Brainard

ISBN: 978-0-472-08637-5 9 (University of Michigan Press – Ann Arbor)

ISBN: 978-971-506-842-0 (University of Santo Tomas Publishing House)

Turkish translation- out of print

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Typhoon Gaeimi Floods Manla - News and Story

Photo courtesy of Emmie Abadilla, FB

 July 25, 2024: Because of Typhoon Gaeimi (or Carina in the Philippines), Manila is flooded. It is one of the worst floods, with several major roads chest-high with floodwaters. 

I am reading about the flooding there when I remembered this short story "Flooded" by Rogelio Cruz, which is part of the anthology GROWING UP FILIPINO: STORIES FOR YOUNG ADULTS (Ed. Cecilia Brainard). This is a more light-hearted look at Manila's flood. 

FLOODED

Rogelio Cruz

Manila was strange. It yielded not the usual parallel city streets and consecutively-numbered blocks, but triangles, circles, and other haphazard spaces that brushed at the ends of one’s nerves pleasantly. Fritz suspected that the original plan, a century ago, was affluence: sparse black-and-gray vehicles trudging narrow roads on a damp and drowsy Sunday morning, open-air orchestras, an aviary, the Sky Room. The skeleton of it was still there; but its once white and pastel flesh was now bloated with the sweet-rotten color and smell of poverty, of phlegm and urine in the open gutters. The dainty roads now proved to be traffic hell; the corner statues and whores were curses to each other — because of one, the other had too little space. Worst of all, when the rain struck it blind and flushed all the filth the cavities of its dying buildings never ran out of, the city drowned in a sick fluid the color of coffee and milk.

Fritz and Jan were caught in the flashflood. When they left Rizal Memorial after watching the basketball tournament, it was sunny and humid; then the sun died like a lighted match thrown into a ditch, and the slick, damp, rueful silver of rain clouds drained everything of all their color. The view from their windshield shifted quick as the next slide on a carousel, with a blinding white sheet of rain the intermediate frame: the next thing Jan knew, he was keeping his foot on the gas so the water wouldn’t get into the muffler as they trudged Rizal Avenue. Along its deepest portion they even saw a yellow kayak speeding past them. The chaos of the city and the chaos of the weather were one. It signified the nearing of the end, they thought, when God just might opt to destroy this pathetic place, and start all over again.

They ended up at Gov. Forbes. It was strangled with cars, and they didn’t move for an hour and a half. Jan decided to create a counterflow. He wedged his car out sharply from the gridlock and sped down the opposite lane, but to no avail: the intersection was impossible to pass, and he had nowhere else to go. He retreated.

This lane of Gov. Forbes was empty. It was the only road that was passable at all; and though it led away from Jan’s and Fritz’s destination, and to unlit, stranger parts of the city, it gave, especially if one did not stare out too far, the illusion that it was the way home. For a moment, Jan seemed to have given in to this illusion: he sped down the lane, until he reached the end of the paved part. Then he hesitated as he realized they were about to enter a colony of shanties, that seemed to be slowly sinking into mud, lighted only by whatever threads of blue moonlight could escape from the dense sky.