IMAGINE Philippine history with a magical twist. This is mostly the tone in Palanca Award-winning author and filmmaker Januar Yap’s new novel “Arkipelago,” set to launch this week at the University of the Philippines (UP) Cebu. The launch is dubbed “Duha ka Dupa: Dobleng Paglusad,” which will take place at the university’s newly inaugurated Lawak Sinehan/Cinematheque.
The novel will be launched simultaneously with Yap’s collection of short stories called “Matag Adlaw,” which received the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) Writer’s Prize in 2019.
“Arkipelago,” a composite novel, talks of lost ships, immortal dwarves, invisible texts, fugitive birds, all in a dizzying interaction with history and politics. The novel contains some of Yap’s Palanca Award-winning stories as chapters in this book.
One of the noteworthy chapters is called “Baradero,” the narrative of which goes as far back as when over 300 lepers from Cebu were transported to the leper colony in Culion, Palawan. Another chapter called “Ang Haya ni Tasyo,” talks about a perpetual nuisance candidate in Philippine elections who retired to an obscure island, and lived his life as a village savant, reminiscent of Jose Rizal’s Pilosopo Tasyo in “Noli Mi Tangere.”
Dubbed by critics as a postmodern novel, “Arkipelago” mixes elements in history, pop culture, urban legends, indigenous and foreign myths, while its seafaring narrative covers an expansive setting from Culion Island, Bucas Grande in Surigao to as far as Benham Rise.
“Matag Adlaw,” on the other hand, is set in inner city Cebu. As former ambassador, award-winning poet and critic Vicente Bandillo wrote in the book introduction, “Take hold of a drawing compass and stick its needle in a map of Cebu City, right in the heart (Sambag Uno, that is), circa 2000, then twist it to draw a circle with a radius of 20 years. There you have this book’s space-time.”
Critic and academic Ralph Semina Galan, assistant director of the University of Santo Tomas Center for Creative Writing and Literary Studies, wrote of “Matag Adlaw,” “Yap’s short stories in this new collection are very relatable to the Cebu reading public (and to other readers from Visayas and Mindanao who can read texts in Cebuano), since they do not only capture the contemporary scene (or should I say scenes, for their scenarios are quite varied) in Cebu, they make a lot of sense as well, particularly for those who are familiar with Cebuano sensibility and sensitivity.”
Yap currently teaches in UP Cebu and is on PhD Media and Communication studies in RMIT University, Australia. His works have won in the Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature and have been published in various anthologies, including “ULIRAT: Best Contemporary Stories in Translation from the Philippines,” published in Singapore; Asian Literature Project of Japan Foundation; and “21st Century Philippine Literature Reader” of the NCCA.
The official book launch is set on Friday, April 28, 2023, at the Cinematheque of UP Cebu. The Cebuano writers’ group Bathalad (Bathalan-ong Halad sa Dagang) will perform excerpts from the books. Both books are published by Advaux Publishing Inc. (PR)