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Cecilia Manguerra Brainard

author and editor

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Magdalena

Magdalena

US Edi­tion: PALH, 2021, soft­cov­er, 186 pages
ISBN 978–1‑953716–118 — BOOK ORDER

Philip­pine Edi­tion: Uni­ver­si­ty of San­to Tomas Pub­lish­ing House, 2016, soft­cov­er, 146 pages, ISBN 978–971-506–801‑7 — avail­able from Laza­da and Shopee

Avail­able from Kindle

 

Poetic and Lyrical

Writ­ten in the frag­ment­ed style, Cecil­ia Brainard’s lyri­cal sec­ond nov­el Mag­dale­na, tells the sto­ries of three gen­er­a­tions of Fil­ipino women whose lives have been affect­ed by the Philip­pine Amer­i­can War, World War Two, and the Viet­nam War. The nov­el is a favorite among poets, aca­d­e­mics and feminists.

Praise

“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 Book Review)

“Cecil­ia Manguer­ra Brainard has writ­ten an ambi­tious nov­el of for­bid­den love. Set against the tur­bu­lent his­to­ry of East Asia in the twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry and by turns erot­ic and trag­ic, Mag­dale­na vivid­ly depicts three gen­er­a­tions of strong Fil­ipino women.” (Aimee Liu, author of Cloud Mountain)

“With her sec­ond nov­el, Mag­dale­na, Cecil­ia Brainard adds new por­traits to the gallery in Philip­pine lit­er­a­ture. She has always had a strong sense of place. Here, she pro­vides an inner land­scape as well. Togeth­er, these pro­vide the coor­di­nate for the fam­i­ly secrets that bind the char­ac­ters as secure­ly as blood­lines. By the end they have glimpsed who they have become, allow­ing the nov­el beyond its last page, to live on in the read­ers’ thoughts.” (Lin­da Ty-Casper, author of The Strand­ed Whale)

“In this nov­el, Brainard blends a series of mul­ti­ple per­spec­tives to cre­ate a polypho­ny of voic­es that enacts Philip­pines soci­ety … The nar­ra­tive is a nuanced vision of the work­ings of cul­ture, social oblig­a­tion, social class, oblig­a­tion and the Fil­ipino per­son­al­i­ty.” (Rocio G. Davis, author of Tran­scul­tur­al Rein­ven­tions: Asian Amer­i­can and Asian Cana­di­an Short Sto­ry Cycles)

“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 for Philip­pines Graphic)

Excerpt

https://cbrainard.blogspot.com/2011/02/chapter-from-magdalena-novel-by-cecilia.html

Book Reviews

World Lit­er­a­ture Today, April-June 2003

Review by Eileen Tabios for Babay­lan Speaks, March 2003

Review by Luisa Iglo­ria for MELUS, Vol, 29, No. 1, Spring 2004

Review by Alma Anonas-Car­pio for Philip­pine Graph­ic, March 2, 2018

Ama­zon Review by Ron Zack, 2/25/18 for the Plain View Edi­tion of MAGDALENA

Research Papers and Oth­er Schol­ar­ly Writings

Fic­tion­al­ized Bod­ies: The Rep­re­sen­ta­tions of the Female Body in the Short Sto­ries of Cecil­ia Manguerra-Brainard
by John Jack C. Wigley
(“Rep­re­sen­ta­tions of the Female Body in Cecil­ia Manguer­ra Brainard’s Fic­tion.” MA Lit­er­a­ture The­sis, Uni­ver­si­ty of San­to Tomas.)
Pub­lished: Uni­tas, Quar­ter­ly Schol­ar­ly Jour­nal of the Uni­ver­si­ty of San­to Tomas, Vol. 77, No. 3, Sep­tem­ber 2004

From Wax­ing to Wan­ing: Wom­en’s Psy­cho­sex­u­al Devel­op­ment in the Short Fic­tion of Fil­ipino Amer­i­can Female Writ­ers, by John Jack C. Wigley
Pub­lished: Uni­tas, Quar­ter­ly Schol­ar­ly Jour­nal of the Uni­ver­si­ty of San­to Tomas, Vol 80, No. 4, Decem­ber 2007
 “Mag­dale­na” : A Lin­guis­tic Rein­ven­tion, by Dr. Rhodo­ra G. Mag­an, pub­lished in  GSTF Jour­nal of Law and Social Sci­ence (JLSS) Vol. 4 No. 2, Octo­ber 2015
“Eve and Her Beings: A Chopin-Brainard Sim­u­la­tion”, by Dr. Rhodo­ra G. Mag­an, deliv­ered at the Asian Con­fer­ence on Lit­er­a­ture & Librar­i­an­ship, April 2–5, 2015 in Osa­ka, Japan 

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Cecil­ia Brainard
c/o PALH
PO Box 5099
San­ta Mon­i­ca, CA 90409
USA

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