The Twentieth-Century Philippines in Ten Novels: Literature as History (1913–1975)

The Twentieth-Century Philippines in Ten Novels: Literature as History (1913–1975) by the distinguished critic, scholar, writer, and translator, Soledad S. Reyes, analyzes and interprets ten Tagalog novels, providing fresh insights while also explaining the significance behind their historical and cultural contexts.

The book is composed of ten essays, one essay per novel, published between the periods of American colonialism, the Commonwealth Era, freedom and reconstruction after World War II, and Ferdinand E. Marcos’s dictatorship. It shows the power of literature to depict narratives, experiences, and points of view that are difficult—if not impossible to achieve, in straight historical accounts. The novels presented in this book are not just mere reenactments of important historical moments, but magnificent works that show the storytelling brilliance and personal interpretations of the novelists about certain important events in the country’s history.

In shedding light on ten Tagalog novels, Reyes has succeeded in providing an interpretation of Philippine history based, in part, on the perspectives, insights, experiences, struggles, and imagination of the novelists as well as the characters present in each of the novels. The book is yet again a testament to Reyes’s vast knowledge and erudition about Philippine literature and culture, a result of her decades of scholarly dedication.

This anthology of well-written and thought-provoking analyses of ten Tagalog novels written between 1913 and 1975, by premier scholar and critic Soledad Reyes, explores how the events in Philippine history impacted, inspired, and influenced the works of fiction of their time. It also reveals how novelists did not only reflect historical events but instead crafted narratives and characters embodying their understanding and personal interpretations of the nation’s cardinal moments.

–Nicanor G. Tiongson, PhD
Professor Emeritus, UP Film Institute,
College of Mass Communication, University of the Philippines Diliman

Everyone familiar with Soledad S. Reyes’s monumental study, Ang Nobelang Tagalog (1905–1975): Tradisyon at Modernismo (1982), will welcome, with elation, this new volume by the same author, which focuses on ten of the original 300 volumes. These essays, in effect, constitute a history of the Tagalog novel, while representing a re-examination and re-evaluation of the novels, from the perspective of the twenty-first century.

–Dr. Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo
Director of the Center for Creative Writing and Literary Studies,
University of Santo Tomas

A literary criticism like no other, Soledad S. Reyes’s The Twentieth-Century Philippines in Ten Novels: Literature as History (1913–1975) is the most expansive, brilliant, and restless critiques of the societies that produced the men and women who created these fictional worlds and the cast of characters w