CECILIA BRAINARD’S BOOK ~ WOMAN WITH HORNS & OTHER STORIES ~ REISSUED

CECILIA BRAINARD’S WOMAN WITH HORNS & OTHER STORIES REISSUED

PALH (Philip­pine Amer­i­can Lit­er­ary House) announces the release of the US Edi­tion of Cecil­ia Manguer­rra Brainard’s short sto­ry col­lec­tion, Woman with Horns and Oth­er Sto­ries.

First pub­lished in the Philip­pines in 1987, the recep­tion of Cecil­ia Manguer­ra Brainard’s first book has been extra­or­di­nary. Her myth­i­cal place “Ubec” (Cebu back­wards), which is the set­ting for most of the sto­ries, was embraced by Cebuanos and “Ubec” and has become part of their lex­i­con. Teach­ers use sto­ries from this col­lec­tion and YouTube has stu­dent films of the lead sto­ry “Woman with Horns” in par­tic­u­lar. There is even a Wikipedia write-up about “Woman with Horns.”

The book col­lects a dozen sto­ries that draw from his­tor­i­cal and con­tem­po­rary sources. Many of these sto­ries explore the clash of Philip­pine cul­ture with for­eign influ­ences that reached the arch­i­pel­ago dur­ing dif­fer­ent his­tor­i­cal peri­ods.

Marie Castil­lo-Pru­dent praised the book in Katipunan as fol­lows, “Beau­ti­ful­ly writ­ten in the min­i­mal­ist style yet nev­er lack­ing col­or and clar­i­ty, Brainard’s sto­ries reach out from the deep cen­turies of folk­lore, super­sti­tion, reli­gion, cus­toms, geog­ra­phy and his­to­ry to bring them life into the present. But more than life itself, this book mir­rors the unique ways in which the Fil­ip­ina woman search­es for mean­ing. The locale and peri­od of each sto­ry expand rather than lim­it the char­ac­ters’ choic­es.”

The Mani­la Times called the book “A wel­come addi­tion to Fil­ip­ini­ana.”

The US edi­tion of Woman with Horns and Oth­er Sto­ries presents this beloved book to a new audi­ence. For a lim­it­ed time, Woman With Horns and Oth­er Sto­ries: US Edi­tion in paper­back is avail­able from Ama­zon for $9.95. (https://www.amazon.com/dp/1953716032) The book is also avail­able in Kin­dle form.

Cecil­ia Brainard is the author and edi­tor of over twen­ty books, includ­ing her nov­els, When the Rain­bow God­dess Wept, Mag­dale­na, and The News­pa­per Wid­ow. Her Select­ed Short Sto­ries by Cecil­ia Manguer­ra Brainard is forth­com­ing by the Uni­ver­si­ty of San­to Tomas Pub­lish­ing House.

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Tags: books Philip­pines Cebu Sug­bo lit­er­a­ture fic­tion short sto­ries lit­er­ary