Filipino Literature

Poet, essayist, novelist, fiction writer, and labor organizer, Carlos Bulosan (1911-1956) wrote one of the most influential working class literary classics about the US pre-World War II, a period and setting similar to that of Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath and Cannery Row. Bulosan's semi-autobiographical novel America Is in the Heart begins with the narrator's rural childhood in the Philippines and the struggles of land-poor peasant families affected by US imperialism after the Spanish-American War of the late 1890s.

You wake up floating. Not in the air, but horizontally in a coffin-sized chamber filled with blue gelatinous fluid. You do not remember what this is. You do not remember why you are here. You do not remember who you are.

The teacher Patrick Healy travelled around the world, talked with people in different places, and collected around half a thousand myths, legends, and folktales and several alternative versions. His opinion and comments (directly or indirectly) are inevitable. 61 Filipino Tales is the third volume of his work, in his words. He retold the stories with his own opinion and approach to them.

When a wealthy politician’s twelve-year-old son disappears, the family’s driver witnesses the aftermath. A field investigator for the World Health Organization travels the globe giving presentations about a biomedical enzyme that will lead to the extinction of the human race. And Father Augusto Saenz, the Jesuit priest and forensic anthropologist from Smaller and Smaller Circles, returns to investigate the murder of a woman whose secretive life holds the key to her death.

Leilani Santiago is back in her birthplace, the Hawaiian island of Kaua’i, to help keep afloat the family business, a shave ice shack. When she goes to work one morning, she stumbles across a dead body, a young pro surfer who was being coached by her estranged father. As her father soon becomes the no. 1 murder suspect, Leilani must find the real killer and somehow safeguard her ill mother, little sisters, and grandmother while also preserving a long-distance relationship with her boyfriend in Seattle.

A young woman is drawn into a dangerous game after being invited to the mazelike home of her childhood friend, a rumored witch, in this gothic horror set in 1986 Philippines. In this game, there’s one rule: survive. Orphaned after her father’s political campaign ended in tragedy, Josephine...

The Filipino in Me is a warm and welcoming audiobook that introduces young listeners to cultural identity through everyday values rather than formal lessons or definitions. The story gently explores what it means to be Filipino by focusing on family, respect for elders, kindness, resilience, and pride in one’s roots.

The Karangalan family and their neighbors huddle for survival in the cellar of a house a few miles from Manila. Outside the safety of their little refuge the war rages on—fiery bombs torch the beautiful Filipino countryside, Japanese soldiers round up and interrogate innocent people, and from the hills guerillas wage a desperate campaign against the enemy. Inside the cellar, these men, women, and children put their hopes and dreams on hold as they wait out the war, only emerging to look for food, water, and medicine.

Two men, each unaware of the other, share a common family secret: They were sold for adoption by their American father shortly after their births in the Philippines. Three alternating stories interweave the experiences of father Andrew Breszky and the two sons who try to connect and piece together the puzzle of their reckless, impulsive father. One lives in New York and the other grows up in the south of France, later traveling all over Asia as a documentary filmmaker. Both will discover that their relationships somehow echo that of the young man whose history eludes them.

In this standalone novel based on Filipino mythology, Corazon Lopez is looking forward to her eleventh birthday, when she can finally be trained in wielding babaylan magic. She's hoping she can use it to bring her parents back to life so they can be together again.

I never thought I’d see her again. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, right? But five years later, my casino fling is my new next-door neighbor. A lot’s happened since we got acquainted in that hotel room. I finished out my military career, took a job with my estranged father, moved to the beach…the only thing that hasn’t changed is that Beatrice has always been on my mind. I can’t let her get away again. Lucky for me, she feels the same way.

Some girls call their mother their best friend. Marisol Martin? She could never relate. She and her mom were forever locked in an argument with no beginning and no end. Clothes, church, boys, no matter the topic, Marisol always felt like there was an unbridgeable gap between them that they were perpetually shouting across, one that she longed to close. But when her mother dies suddenly, Marisol is left with no one to fight against, haunted by all the things that she both said and didn’t say.

A serial killer recants his long-ago confession regarding a small-town high school girl—and her then-best friends are forced to confront what really happened that night and what's happening now. Twenty-five years ago in Seaside, Washington, a charming drifter named Sam met three inseparable...

Filipino Culture Class. What vocabulary do I need to know to have a conversation with Filipino-speaking locals? What are the five most popular sweets in the Philippines? What are the most important cultural holidays? Get the answer to these, and much, much, more with Filipino Culture Class.

Which moment has defined your life so far? Whether she likes it or not, Iris’s life has been divided into two: Before the Incident, and After the Incident. Something very private was made very public, and since then life has been about recovering from being shamed, discovering her true friends, and struggling to find a new normal. Two years into this new life and she finally connects with a guy again. He lives in the apartment down the hall, he’s hot, and he doesn’t look at her that way. He doesn’t know what happened. But he also won’t give her his name, not right away - which has to mean he’s got something to hide too.

It's the middle of the pandemic and Hawaii has been virtually closed to tourists.

So when Leilani Santiago and her young sisters save a mysterious woman wearing an unusual lei fro….

Are you a mature man seeking genuine love and companionship? Look no further than the enchanting archipelago of the Philippines! In "An Older Gentleman's Best Tips To Finding Love & Marriage In The Philippines," you'll discover a treasure trove of wisdom and insights tailored to help you navigate the complexities of dating and courtship in this vibrant Southeast Asian nation. In this comprehensive guide, an experienced older gentleman shares his firsthand experiences and time-tested advice on meeting and connecting with single Filipina women

As the oldest child in his family, Chris Puso has always taken his responsibilities seriously. He’ll do whatever it takes to ensure Heart Resort’s success. Four and a half years ago, that meant marrying Eden, a woman he admired but didn’t love, to access a family trust that benefited them both. Eden Puso, a.k.a. romance author Everly Heart, believes in true love - in her novels, at least. But her marriage to Chris was more about funding her writing career and supporting her family than finding her happily ever after.

A powerful must-read collection of bold BIPOC voices. All proceeds support The Kweli Journal’s mission to nurture emerging writers of color and foster a vibrant literary community. "It gave me great pleasure to read this beautiful collection of important, diverse, sometimes heartbreaking, and...

Angel has just lost her father, and her mother's grief means she might as well be gone, too. She's got a sister and a grandmother to look out for, and a burgeoning consciousness of the unfairness in the world - in her family, her community, and her country. Set against the backdrop of the second Philippine People Power Revolution in 2001, the contemporary struggles of surviving Filipina "Comfort Women" of WWII, and a cold winter’s season in the city of Chicago is the story of a daughter coming of age, coming to forgiveness, and learning to move past the chaos of grief to survive.