Novel
State of War
Ninotchka Rosca · 1988
Synopsis
Three young people from Manila set out for the island of K and its great festival: Eliza Hansen, who sells her favours to the powerful, Adrian Banyaga, son of a leading family, and Anna Villaverde, a dissident scarred by torture. Colonel Amor, her former torturer, follows them, while Anna joins a group preparing an attack on the Commander, a figure of Marcos. The novel also goes back through the history of their ancestors, from the Spaniards to the Americans.
Context
The author's first novel, published a year after Endgame, her reportage on the last days of the regime, it came out in 1988 in New York with W. W. Norton, then in 1990 with Simon & Schuster. Through the mixed ancestry of the characters, the book offers an allegorical history of the Philippines and of the effects of colonisation on Filipino identity. Twice Blessed follows it. It has not been translated into French.
Who it is for
To read a great political and allegorical novel about the Marcos dictatorship and the colonial history of the Philippines.
Prizes and reception
Publishers Weekly praises its Kafkaesque brilliance; the Philippine Daily Inquirer called it in 2020 the author's finest work.