Woman Who Had Two Navels and Tales of the Tropical Gothic

Nick Joaquin is widely considered the most important Filipino writer in English. He was born in Manila in 1917 and received a scholarship to study at a Dominican monastery in Hong Kong. Upon his return, he took a job at the Philippines Free Press, beginning a long and successful career as a writer. A novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, journalist and biographer, he was honoured for his work as a National Artist of the Philippines. His works include the novel The Woman Who Had Two Navels, a play, A Portrait of the Artist as a Filipino, three collections of short fiction, two volumes of poetry, and numerous works of nonfiction. He died in 2004.

Nick Joaquin is akin to Gabriel Garcia Marquez in the extravagant, surreal imagery of his stories, the fatalistic humor, the intricate weaving of history and memory, the spiritual and the sensual, the personal and the political. He is a writer deserving wider recognition, whose magical Macondo was the very real Philippines, in all its beauty, splendor and ruin. Behold this collection of marvels