Winner of the Man Asian Literary Prize
It begins with a body. On a clear day in winter, the battered corpse of Crispin Salvador is pulled from the Hudson River ˇV taken from the world is the controversial lion of Philippine literature. Missing, too, is the only manuscript of his final book. His student, Miguel, investigates, journeying home from a city still in shock from terrorist attacks to a country caught between reckless decay and desperate progress. To understand his mentorˇ¦s death, Miguel scours the life, charting Salvadorˇ¦s trajectory via his poetry, stories, interviews, novels, and memoirs. The literary fragments become patterns become stories become epic: a generations-long saga of revolution, familial duty, political intrigue, and a peopleˇ¦s enduring struggle against their own worst tendencies. This is a clever, bravura, and exuberant debut novel from a new literary sensation
