Ulirát - by Kristine Ong Muslim & John Bengan & Daryll Delgado (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

With a foreword by Gina Apostol. "As a Filipino who dreams in Waray, I have waited too long for Ulirát."

A groundbreaking survey of contemporary Philippine short fiction across seven different languages.

CNN's Best Filipino Books of 2021

TimeOut's 14 new books we're excited to read. ArtsEquator's Hot List.

Words Without Borders, The Watchlist, March 2021

Poets & Writers, "The Anthologist: A Compendium of Uncommon Collections"

ArtsEquator's Hot List

A man grows mushrooms from his nostrils, a town elects three mayors at the same time, a woman gives birth to a snake, and a boy wonders if his soldier father is an aswang.

Ulirát: Best Contemporary Stories in Translation from the Philippines offers alternative visions of the islands beyond poverty and paradise. A vital survey of the richness and diversity of modern Philippine short stories, Ulirát features fiction from Filipino, Cebuano, Hiligaynon, Ilocano, Waray, Kinaray-a, and Akeanon translated into English for the first time for international audiences. Vigorous writing from Filipino writers living in different parts of the archipelago re-animate Duterte's Philippines, dramatizing everything from the drug wars, widespread corruption, and environmental degradation in surprisingly surreal and illuminating ways.

Tagalog for "consciousness," the anthology champions a more expansive, nuanced conception of Filipino literature beyond the confines of English-language Filipino literature.

Review Quotes

"This collection is a classic. . . . no other anthology has given me this pleasure: the existential jolt of recognizing ways of seeing my world that I have, in fact, experienced but, despite all my years of reading, have not encountered on the page." --Gina Apostol, author of Insurrecto

"The subversion presented by Ulirát is notable . . . [and] a goddamn joy to read." --CNN Philippines

"With a manifesto-like introduction which crashes in with guns blazing against the hallowed literary establishment, the stories in this collection are translated with such riveting, bawdy, hilarious, smelly, violent, Pinoy force that we are almost led to believe, once again, in the glorious possibility of translation." --Ramon Guillermo, author of Ang Makina ni Mang Turing and Translation & Revolution

"This landmark anthology presents an alternative canon . . . distinctly Filipino in its temperament and consciousness, but happily accessible to the rest of the world." --Jaime An Lim, author of The Axolotl Colony, Hedonicus, and Literature and Politics

"These stories are populated with non-humans-animals, insects, shapeshifting aswangs-and the no-longer human-dismembered bodies, spirits, saints, voices on tapes-and through them we are brought to a Filipino ulirát of what humans mostly suffer." --Edgar Calabia Samar, author of the Janus Silang series and Walong Diwata ng Pagkahulog

"Lyrical and gritty, myth-infused and naturalistic, horrific and tender . . . . A must-read for anyone interested in the quotidian travails and wondrous metamorphoses undergone by denizens of a haunted republic in a haunted world." --Caroline S. Hau, author of Demigods and Monsters, Tiempo Muerto, and Necessary Fictions

"Sublime moments of discovery and connection, shadowed by horrifying historical backdrops, are what Ulirát offers on virtually every page. . . . In assembling a more comprehensive picture of Filipino consciousness, the collection proclaims the strength of the archipelago's diversity of cultures and perspectives. Ulirát gives English readers an opportunity to pay attention." -Necessary Fiction

"Ulirat's context is full-frontally one of expanding literary landscape." -Eileen Tabios, The Halo-Halo Review

"Ulirát has virtually everything you might want in an anthology of short fiction: a wide spectrum of authorial voices, thematic concerns, and tones ranging from realism to the uncanny." -Words Without Borders, selected for The Watchlist, March 2021

"A dynamic snapshot of Philippine letters." -Poets & Writers, selected for "The Anthologist: A Compendium of Uncommon Collections"