© Frankfurter Buchmesse
America Is Not the Heart: A Novel by Elaine Castilo
Publisher: Viking; First Edition (April 3, 2018)
How many lives fit in a lifetime? When Hero De Vera arrives in America--haunted by the political upheaval in the Philippines and disowned by her parents--she's already on her third. Her uncle gives her a fresh start in the Bay Area, and he doesn't ask about her past. His younger wife knows enough about the might and secrecy of the De Vera family to keep her head down. But their daughter--the first American-born daughter in the family--can't resist asking Hero about her damaged hands.
An increasingly relevant story told with startling lucidity, humor, and an uncanny ear for the intimacies and shorthand of family ritual, America Is Not the Heart is a sprawling, soulful debut about three generations of women in one family struggling to balance the promise of the American dream and the unshakeable grip of history. With exuberance, grit, and sly tenderness, here is a family saga; an origin story; a romance; a narrative of two nations and the people who leave one home to grasp at another.
How to Read Now: Essays by Elaine Castillo
Publisher: Viking (July 26, 2022)
How to Read Now explores the politics and ethics of reading, and insists that we are capable of something better: a more engaged relationship not just with our fiction and our art, but with our buried and entangled histories. Smart, funny, galvanizing, and sometimes profane, Castillo attacks the stale questions and less-than-critical proclamations that masquerade as vital discussion: reimagining the cartography of the classics, building a moral case against the settler colonialism of lauded writers like Joan Didion, taking aim at Nobel Prize winners and toppling indie filmmakers, and celebrating glorious moments in everything from popular TV like The Watchmen to the films of Wong Kar-wai and the work of contemporary poets like Tommy Pico. At once a deeply personal and searching history of one woman’s reading life, and a wide-ranging and urgent intervention into our globalized conversations about why reading matters today. How to Read Now empowers us to embrace a more complicated, embodied form of reading, inviting us to acknowledge complicated truths, ignite surprising connections, imagine a more daring solidarity, and create space for a riskier intimacy—within ourselves, and with each other.
Moderation: A Novel by Elaine Castillo
Publisher: Viking Publishing, August 5, 2025
A bold and inventive novel about real romance in the virtual workplace—bringing Castillo's trademark wit and sharp cultural criticism to an irresistible story about the possible future of love. Girlie Delmundo is the greatest content moderator in the world, and despite the setbacks of financial crises, climate catastrophe, and a global pandemic, she’s going places: she’s getting a promotion. Now thanks to her parent company Paragon’s purchase of Fairground—the world’s preeminent virtual reality content provider—she’s on the way to becoming an elite VR moderator, playing in the big leagues and, if her enthusiastic bosses are to be believed, moderating the next stage of human interaction. Despite the isolation that virtual reality requires from colleagues, friends, and family, the unbelievable perks of her new job mean she can solve a lot of her family's problems with money and mobility. She doesn't have to think about the childhood home they lost back in the Bay Area, or history at all—she can just pay any debts that come due. But when she meets William Cheung, Playground’s wry, reticent co-founder (now Chief Product Officer) and slowly unearths some of his secrets, and finds herself somehow falling in love, she’ll learn that history might be impossible to moderate and the future utterly impossible to control.
Si Amapola sa 65 na Kabanata by Ricky Lee
Publisher: Phil Writers Studio Foundation Publsihers, Inc. (Jan. 1, 2011)
2010 election. One homosexual impersonator, Amapola, became "manananggal" and received a prophecy that she will save Philippines. The news messenger: Emil, a police who is a big fan of Nora. The source of the news: Sepa, a great grandmother of Amapola, whom had a unrequited love affair with Andres Bonifacio during the Spanish time.
Lee used his background in writing for TV shows and movies to put the characters in colourful situations. In the book, he navigated the tensions of deliberately creating an alter ego while having multiple personality disorders. This book will make you feel suspenseful sometimes and sad at other points. But Lee injects humour into each moment, making this read unforgettable.
Bahay ni Marta by Ricky Lee
Publisher: Phil Writers Studio Foundation, Inc. (January 1, 2018)
One sad night something horrible happens to Marta, and it propels every character in the story, related to Marta or not, to go through a journey of retribution and redemption, in a society where voices are stifled, a house is forced to speak, and a mute young boy finds his voice.
“Bahay ni Marta” is a heart-gripping tale of love, transgression and redemption that could only come from one of the country’s master storytellers. Come and enter the world of “Bahay ni Marta”, where the seemingly whimsical meets layers of truths deftly and deeply woven. With its brilliant alchemy of fantastical scenarios and relatable emotions, a reader can simply sigh in recognition and insight towards the last few pages.
Si Tatang at mga Himala ng Ating Panahon by Ricky Lee
Publisher: Phil Writers Studio Foundation, Inc. (1998)
Si Tatang at Mga Himala ng Ating Panahon is a unique anthology comprising a selection of Lee's short stories, interviews, journalistic articles, and a full-length screenplay. Aside from its odd combination of genres, it also had a creative format, a magazine-book hybrid.
For B (or How Love Devastates Four out of Every Five of Us) by Ricky Lee
Publisher: Bughaw / Ateneo de Manila University Press Publishing
Lee’s first novel revolves around 5 different stories that speak the truth about falling in love, accepting a heart break, and falling out of love. These five situations can be related to any person’s love story. Apart from this, the story also speaks of the writer’s insecurities and frustrations on making the novel. It also expounds on the writer’s theory of love.
“For B” is a personal journey for Lee because it also involves his own story. The balancing of characters greatly affects the flow of the story. Each character has her own chapter, her own moment. Each chapter has its own situation. Some of the situations are rarely seen in a normal context in the society. “For B” has its own twist at the end. Lee’s imagination does not only deal with each of the characters but also the life of a writer and his own ideologies. Quotations expressed in the novel are encapsulated with lessons on how to survive a tragic chapter in our life.
Archipelago of Stars by Gutierrez Mangansakan II
Publisher: Ateneo de Naga University Press
In Archipelago of Stars, Mangansakan charts his personal histories and memories as a young, queer, and Moro filmmaker vis-a-vis his travels and encounters with literary luminaries like Salman Rushdie. In this collection, he pivoted towards his own poetics and politics as one of Mindanao's most prolific creatives.
The Vanished (Ang Nawawala) by Chuckberry Pascual
Publisher: 19th Avenida Publishing House
Ang Nawawala (The Vanished) is a comic, queer, and Filipino take on the detective novella. It is made up of seven interconnected stories featuring the exploits of Brigido, a.k.a. “Bree,” a masseuse and barangay (village) hall receptionist turned unlikely detective. Bree’s search for these small, seemingly inconsequential objects and persons unearths other issues and crimes in the village of Talong Punay.
Ang Nawawalang Barangay (The Vanishing Village) by Chuckberry Pascual
Publisher: 19th Avenida Publishing House, September 11, 2024
Fans of Brigido “Bree” Macaspac are sure to be delighted by the return of Barangay Talong Punay’s intrepid, redoubtable investigator as she looks into a spate of mysterious disappearances in Malabon and elsewhere. Bree’s dogged pursuit of the truth puts her on a collision course with uncooperative cops, petty government officials, power-mongering elites, manhandling thugs, and religious fanatics. Darkly comic, sharply observed, perfectly pitched to capture the living language of our times, Chuckberry J. Pascual’s Ang Nawawalang Barangay explores the politics of despair and disempowerment, the dark allure of religion and social media, and the necessity of resisting the angels when they whisper, “Swalla, sa wala tayo nagmula, at sa wala rin babalik.”
Mars, May Zombie! (Look, Mars! Zombies!) by Chuckberry Pascual
Publisher: Adarna House, Inc. (September 15, 2022)
It is 2028, eight years after the zombie apocalypse has taken over the world. Marcelo “Mars” Manapat is one of the survivors, and he is running out of toilet paper. Together with his neat freak of a grandmother Vicky, and his sassy best friend Billie, a self-confessed Beyonce stan, he has gotten used to navigating life in different zombie-infested Red Zones. Until one day, he hatches a plan to get into the nearest zombie-free Blue Zone and discovers a secret that may even be worse than flesh-eating monsters!
Plus/+, at Iba Plus, Maramihan: New Philippine Fiction on Sexual Orientations and Gender Identities by Chuckberry Pascual (Ed.) and Rolando B. Tolentino (Ed.)
Publisher: Ateneo de Manila University Press
In gathering short stories featuring the experience of LGBTQIA+ that present different identities and personal and power relationships, that describe the current society in its various manifestations in different parts of the country, and that continue to imagine a brighter future for all genders, we expect to give the reader—whether a member of the LGBTQIA+ community or not—a new perspective on his surroundings and the people he interacts with.
This anthology unites the voice of the LGBTQIA+ writer, our readers, our public, and the other pages of national literature and contrarian politics—it is an assertion to be different, with the solidarity of ranks, with unity and solidarity with other identities and aspects of citizenship that are oppressed, with the need to change society, history, and the modernity of experience.
Riverrun: A Novel by Danton Remoto
Publisher: Penguin Random House SEA (1 December 2020)
Riverrun is a novel that talks about the rite of passage in the life of a young gay man who grew up in a colorful and chaotic dictatorship. Shaped in the form of a memoir, it glides from childhood to young adulthood, from provincial barrio to cosmopolitan London. Its chapters are written like flash fiction, talk stories, and vignettes; interlaced with recipes, a feature article, poems, and vivid songs. Riverrun marks the global debut of one of Asia’s best writers.
The Heart of Summer: Stories and Tales by Danton Remoto
Publisher: Penguin Random House SEA (March 28, 2023)
Award-winning stories and tales about the rites of passage in our lives—love and loss, gladness and grief, departure and return—written in the realistic and fabulist modes. A collection of short fiction on love, longing and loss written in the realist and fantastic modes. A young boy and his sisters gather beautiful shells on the beach as mementos of a country they will leave behind. A girl who loves the Beatles sees dwarfs that are drawn charcoal-black on a white plate. A rich matron in Singapore discovers a primeval thing in her ritzy penthouse. A poor woman in the boondocks gives birth to a mudfish. Dead lovers buried beneath a hotel ruined by an earthquake reach out to each other. And a woman poisoned in Scotland centuries ago still haunts a hilltop castle, looking for her dead lover.
These and other memorable characters inhabit Danton Remoto’s book of stories and tales. Some of the stories are written in the realistic mode. They poke fun at a colourful but violent dictatorship or track the same-sex love in a young man’s heart. The others are written in the fantastic mode—fables, parables, origin tales, cheeky rewriting of rural lore and urban legends. The length of the stories also varies. Some are flash fiction, while the others have the sweep of a novella. The stories are meant to entertain but also to instruct: why the present is just a re-looping of the past, why love remains constant and true even beyond death. Written with daring and with dash, this book comes from the pen of ‘one of Asia’s best writers’.
Ladlad: An Anthology of Philippine Gay Writing by J. Neil Garcia (Editor), Danton Remoto (Editor)
Publisher: Anvil Publishing, Inc. (1994)
This collection has various short stories, poems, plays, and essays. Here, the writers deconstruct ‘macho’ conservative culture. It often undermines queer men’s agency and capacity for living fulfilling, creative lives. These writers have paved a new way forward, creating a space for their experiences.
The stories delve into the intricacy of relationships. They don’t flinch from portraying deeply human behaviours like possessiveness, jealousy, and the neverending search for belonging.
Ladlad was among the first to explore the experiences of gay men in the Philippines. Instead of treating them like a punchline or sweeping their stories under the rug, this puts them into focus.
Gayday: Essays by Danton Remoto
Publisher: Anvil Publishing, Inc. (2002)
The term ‘gaydar’ is a blend of ‘gay’ and ‘radar.’ As you may know from science, radar is a method of determining the position of objects, like missiles, using radio waves. Figuratively, ‘gaydar’ refers to the perceived innate ability to identify a gay man, even when he attempts to conceal his sexual orientation. This might involve recognizing subtle cues in behavior or appearance, even in ‘straight-acting’ men, or ‘paminta’ in Filipino.
Remoto’s essays, originally published in The Philippine Star from 1997 to 1999, are compiled in this book. He writes about his experiences growing up, studying abroad, his relationships with family and friends, and his advocacy for the LGBT community. The essays are unified by the theme of gay life in the Philippines, addressing the challenges and dilemmas faced by the community, including political issues and irresponsible journalism.
Aura: The Gay Theme in Philippine Fiction in English by J. Neil Garcia (Editor)
Publisher: Anvil Publishing, Inc. (2012)
The title contains two meanings. First, “aura” means homoerotically flaunting the “fabulous gay self” (that is Garcia’s “Uma-awra” [aura as a verb]); secondly, it refers to the imaging of unmistakable queer personas, highlighting their gay-centric experiences in works penned by some of the most established Filipino fiction writers in English.
Garcia introduces the problematics of homosexuality: its subject, scope, and limitation, and motives, and explains the underpinnings that constitute the fictional imagings2 of gayness and the gay self (concepts or representations, suggestions, intimations, or shamelessly full-blown articulations). The word bakla is rooted in historical, social, religious, and political dynamics. Indeed, Garcia historicizes homosexuality by differentiating ideas between gender and sexuality.
Dead Balagtas, Tomo 1: Mga Sayaw ng Dagat at Lupa by Emiliana Kampilan
Publisher: Adarna House, Inc. (2017)
Unlock the vibrant tapestry of Filipino history and culture with "Dead Balagtas, Tomo 1: Mga Sayaw ng Dagat at Lupa," a graphic masterpiece by Emiliana Kampilan. This nationally acclaimed comic book, recipient of the 2018 National Book Award for Best Graphic Literature and Best Book Design, takes you on an extraordinary journey through the heart and soul of the Philippines.
In this first volume, immerse yourself in the captivating narrative as a wise babaylan unfolds the tale of the universe's creation, born from the passionate love between Tungkung Langit and Laon Sina. Explore the birth of continents, the clash of oceans, and the enduring romance between sea and earth—forces that have not only shaped our homeland but continue to mold the spirit of the Filipino nation.
"Dead Balagtas" stands as a pioneering and imaginative work, offering a unique perspective on the rich and colorful history of the Philippines. With its compelling storytelling and breathtaking illustrations, this comic book transcends the boundaries of traditional graphic literature.
Ligaw-Tingin: Kalipunang Komix ng Pagmamahalang Marilag by Emiliana Kampilan (Editor)
Publisher: Ganatala Press, 2018
Among the seven full-color komix in the collection are stories about lesbian schoolgirls, lesbian grandmothers, and other ordinary lesbians in urban and mythical spaces. Created by queer women komix artists, it is the first anthology of its kind to be published in the Philippines.
Zsazsa Zaturnnah sa Kalakhang Maynila by Carlo Vergara
Publisher: 19th Avenida Publishing House; Collected edition (September 15, 2022)
After defeating a giant frog, a horde of zombies, and the extraterrestrial Amazonista, small-town beautician Ada begins a new chapter by moving the big city with hunky Dodong, and taking up residence in the old house of his friend Gwyneth. Not only does earning his keep prove more difficult, Ada also finds himself dealing with a haunting past, the return of the Zaturnnah stone, new enemies and allies, startling revelations, true confessions, and the prospect of a new--and complicated--romance. Can Ada survive a place that seeks to wear out his mind, his body... and his heart?
Superheroes have always been an important part of Filipino culture. Their colourful personalities and unique strengths have made them beloved to the cultural experience. One LGBT superhero is Zsazsa Zaturnnah.
When gay beautician Ada swallows a magical stone and shouts, “Zaturnnah!” he immediately transforms into a curvy, red-haired superheroine. Zsazsa has super strength, agility, and indestructibility. Over the series, Zsazsa fights off giant frogs, zombies, and the Amazonistas of Planet Xxx.
The character may be modelled after the iconic Darna, but Zsazsa deals with issues faced by the LGBT community. Ada’s father never approved of his sexual orientation, and Ada struggled to accept this aspect of his identity and his desire to be loved and accepted.
Tingle: Anthology of Pinay Lesbian Writing by Jhoanna Lynn B. Cruz (Editor)
Publisher: Anvil Publishing, Inc. (July 13, 2021)
Filipino lesbians are often underrepresented in the cultural discussion. But with Cruz’s anthology, composed of works from 49 lesbian writers, things have changed.
She asked each writer, “What makes you tingle as a lesbian?” She asked them to discuss how being a lesbian enriched and informed their experiences. The stories, poems, and opinion pieces celebrated the depths of their answers.
Here, you will find stories of accepting one’s sexual orientation and finding ways to love other women. Some stories delve into our profoundly religious and patriarchal society. Others grapple with the disappointment of one’s family, meeting this grief with gentle compassion. Above all, this collection highlights the depth and breadth of sapphic experiences in a tender and nuanced way.
Orosa Nakpil, Malate by Louie Mar A. Gangcuangco
Publisher: Louie Mar's Publications (2006)
The HIV/AIDS crisis was a devastating moment in LGBTQIA+ history with far-reaching consequences. At the time, there were many misconceptions about the disease and how it could be passed among people.
With Orosa Nakpil, Malate, Gangcuangco debunks those myths. At the same time, he invites the reader into the complex, colourful lives of the queer characters who are navigating the virus themselves.
A vibrant and daring novel, Gangcuangco does not shy away from the struggles and triumphs of the gay experience. This story will stay with readers long after they’ve put the book down.
Brief Histories by Don Jaucian
Publisher: Everything's Fine (November 5, 2022)
Is queer happiness possible?
Brief Histories explores this question through 16 sketches hinged on pop cultural detritus from songhits to songbirds, early obsessions such as Polly Pockets, the longstanding influence of media representation, and the unrealized dream of safe spaces and security for the LGBTQIA+ community. At once humorous and heartbreaking, Brief Histories is a tour of the joys, hardships, and possibilities of growing up a gay boy in the Philippines.
Kolboy: Denial, Disgust, and the Production of Value in Male Sex Work in the Philippines by Carlo Tadiar
Publisher: University of the Philippines Press, 2021
This book explores the traditional terms of the commerce in sex in this locality as modern notions of sex, gender, and sexuality brought by intensified globalization impact them. Based on fieldwork among kolboy, Kolboy sketches intimate portraits of individuals engaged in the trade, their interactions with each other and their clientele. Simultaneously, it reflects back on the anthropological enterprise of capturing otherness by manifesting the evolutionary trope that underlies it and other instruments of modernity.