Our Favorite Filipino Books of 2024
All is well for Filipino writers, the way we see it. With each new year, we are again reminded of all the books that are still to be written. This year’s books list is no different. These are the ones that are as affecting as they are relevant, as recent as they are perpetual, and as shocking as they are oddly comforting—the singular voices that leave us in awe.
From dazzling debuts and new editions to genre-breaking collections and timely stories, these books are written by some of the finest and most refreshing Filipino authors we have today. The works here decidedly reflect and represent the personal, political, social, and cultural zeitgeist of the times. Enjoy.
(Note: The books on the list come in no particular order except for, say, some unconscious biases we may have had along the way. It's going to feel random and chaotic because, quite frankly, it is random and chaotic.)
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1| Isabela by Kaisa Aquino
Publisher: Ateneo De Manila University Press
Kaisa Aquino's debut novel offers a gripping, intimate portrait of the province of Isabela and the insurgency in the countryside. Told through the perspectives of different women caught in the crosshairs of displacement and exploitation, Aquino's brilliant language and stunning imagery explore the inner workings of movements and the cross-generational pain and grief shaped by three decades worth of history. Isabela is just a powerful piece of resistance literature brimming with such lush lyricism.
2| Amigo Warfare by Eric Gamalinda
Publisher: Ateneo De Manila University Press
Eric Gamalinda's Amigo Warfare reappears with 12 new poems, adding to the already-sensuous collection. The beauty here lies in how it chronicles the unknowable and the marvelous. Each poem captures the opaqueness of emotion and memory. Simply put, it's a collection that conjures up cosmic echoes, touching on the political, the spiritual, the existential, and the personal.
3| Field by Allan Pastrana
Publisher: Good Intentions Publishing
Operating in a state beyond "lexical dimensions" and plain geography, Allan Pastrana’s Field takes us into a labyrinth of liminal spaces. The collection intimates the incessant reshaping of places and words outside structure or form, providing readers with a unique rhythmic experience. Poet and fictionist Joel M. Toledo points out, too, that the collection is "ultimately, both an ode and elegy that frames into view a nation’s post-coloniality."
4| Tatlong Proposisyon ng Puting Hangin by Luna Sicat-Cleto
Publisher: Balangay Productions
In Tatlong Proposisyon ng Puting Hangin, Luna Sicat Cleto delivers an interesting collection of short stories that marries humor, bizarre, and poignant social commentary. The book highlights her own literary evolution beautifully. Her impressive range, showcased in the whimsical stress of "Alakdan" and the sharp critique in "Petri Dish," among others, make her narratives delectably hypnotic. The professor's distinctive voice serves as the driving force throughout the collection, blending postmodern elements with feminist reflections.
5| So Heaven by Isagani R. Cruz
Publisher: Milflores Publishing
So Heaven is an affecting piece of work that weaves love, loss, regret, and longing through its cast of characters. Cruz excavates desire in his rich lyrical prose, capturing the pain and fleeting nature that comes with human connections—set against the backdrop of emotional turbulence and societal upheaval. It's a meditation on the joys and sorrows of memory and how these shape the lives we lead.
6| Nail Down the Sky by Jam Pascual
Publisher: Everything’s Fine
With 41 poems spread across three sections, Nail Down the Sky dissects grief and loss with such thrilling acuity. It confronts the deep melancholia within us, the disjointed feelings of hollowness that we otherwise shun or take for granted, nurturing it into lovely abstractions. Jam Pascual's sonic power especially shines through in the poems with fixed forms.
7| This Is How to Mean No Harm by Martin Villanueva
Publisher: Ateneo De Manila University Press
This Is How To Mean No Harm by Martin Villanueva exudes a healthy dose of coolness and spicy vitriol. Villanueva gets candid about the anguish that comes from our distressed domesticity and broader cultural and political dynamics. It's a collection that grapples with healing and critique, bridging the gap between the personal and the collective in modern history.
8| Three-Cornered Sun by Linda Ty-Casper
Publisher: Exploding Galaxies
An "attempt to define themselves through the Revolution of 1896," Linda Ty-Casper’s The Three-Cornered Sun is a monumental work of historical fiction. It gives readers an intricate portrait of Filipino life in the mid-20th century, a transitory time for the nation. This book zeroes in on the social turbulence and patriotic upheaval of those days, unraveling the entangled personal and political histories that define the characters (the Viardo family, to be exact). Ty-Casper laces intimacy with escalation, defeat with promise and unfulfilled potential, as well as memory and the pitfalls of our patrimony.
9| Looking Back 17: History in Lockdown by Ambeth R. Ocampo
Publisher: Anvil Publishing
Adding to Ambeth Ocampo's celebrated "Looking Back" series is History in Lockdown. With his signature wit, scholarly rigor, and careful reflection, Ocampo, this time, draws parallels between historical struggles and the current social challenges brought about by the pandemic.
10| Different Countries by Clarissa V. Militante
Publisher: Grana Publishing
Clarissa V. Militante's riveting debut novel, Different Countries (long-listed in the 2009 Man Asia Literary Prize and first published by Anvil in 2010), gets another life with Grana Publishing in 2024. Here, we are caught up in the middle of the search for Tiya Mercedes as the family navigates four generations of familial turmoil and longing. The book takes such complex, dizzying turns, constantly moving back and forth between varied "spatial and temporal corridors," as Dr. Rosario Lucero puts it.
11| Ang Nawawalang Barangay by Chuckberry J. Pascual
Publisher: Avenida Publishing House
In Ang Nawawalang Barangay, we follow the investigator from Talong Punay Bree as he tries to solve the case of mysterious disappearances in a local barangay. The protagonist then ends up uncovering these disappearances' connection to a local religious group named Swalla. It's a crime and mystery novel that meditates on concepts of faith, identity, and uneven power dynamics within contemporary Filipino life.
12| Unrequited Love: Duterte’s China Embrace by Marites Dañguilan Vitug and Camille Elemia
Publisher: Ateneo De Manila University Press
Unrequited Love: Duterte’s China Embrace examines former President Rodrigo Duterte's Philippine foreign policy, particularly the country's strong pivot toward China. Marites Dañguilan Vitug and Camille Elemia look into Duterte's own motivations, the area of controversial Chinese loans, plus their broader implications for Philippine sovereignty and regional security as tensions in the West Philippine Sea persist.
13| Mga Dahong Unang Nalagas: Kasaysayang Taong Labas at Rebolusyonaryo nina Asedillo at Encallado by Victor Paz
Publisher: The University of the Philippines Press
A historical novel that illuminates the stories of the outsiders of the Philippine Revolution. By probing the lives of Nicolas Encallado and Teodoro Asedillo, Mga Dahong Unang Nalagas: Kasaysayang Taong Labas at Rebolusyonaryo nina Asedillo at Encallado by Victor Paz looks at those whose contributions to the nation's becoming are underrepresented. It narrates their social and political struggles, focusing on themes of resistance, the class divide, and our provincial and national history.
14| Duongan by Mikka Ann V. Cabangon
Publisher: Balangay Books
Duongan enthralls its readers with a collection of poems that call back to the ephemeral spaces where nostalgia fenestrates. Her collection of poems enthralls readers with its dreamy reckoning of youth, reflecting on themes of death and displacement. The poet and visual artist Mikka Ann V. Cabangon (Maya Leon, as some of us may know her) leaves us in a state of longing for a bygone time in our lives with its maze of myths, superstitions, rituals, and truths.
15| Ascension by Eliza Victoria
Publisher: Penguin Random House SEA
Eliza Victoria's Ascension is an electric horror novel that operates within a haunting dystopian landscape that’s equal parts otherworldly and familiar. Here, the author, with her sharp prose, tackles familial abuse, violence, and a shared despondency in a broken society by way of usual objects of dread: haunted houses, senseless corpses, and corporate greed on steroids. It's also a great piece of speculative fiction that weaves together the tragedy of the diaspora with our doomed sense of escapism.
16| Ayuda: Mga Dagli sa Panahon ng Quarantine by Rolando A. Bernales
Publisher: UST Publishing House
Ayuda: Mga Dagli sa Panahon ng Quarantine recalls the collective crisis of the pandemic, its ecosystem of vulnerability, and its enduring effects on the ordinary Filipino's psyche. The collection of flash fiction evokes images of desperation, isolation, and uncertainty, all the while celebrating resilience and solitude amidst the struggle.
17| Dogeaters by Jessica Hagedorn
Publisher: Penguin Random House
Rare are the books that possess the sheer literary pedigree of Dogeaters by Jessica Hagedorn. It was first published in 1990 by Pantheon Books in the U.S., and named as one of The Atlantic‘s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years. This 2024 edition from Penguin Randomhouse has an introduction by Patrick Rosal. Dogeaters chronicles the turbulence of 1970s and 1980s Manila under the Marcos dictatorship. The book presents a kaleidoscopic view of a divided country in political and social unrest. Its fragmented, non-linear structure mirrors the chaos of Filipino life at the time, using satire, surrealism, and realism to illustrate a nation on the brink of revolution.
18| Other Stories and Etymologies by Hans Pieter Arao
Publisher: Balangay Books
In a lot of ways, Other Stories and Etymologies is a collection that rethinks the connection between language, memory, and identity. Each story opens a portal to different facets of Filipino life, both in the contemporary and historical sense, united only by the act of claiming and reclaiming cultural memory. In nine stories, Hans Pieter Arao's prose engages readers in deep introspection as it litigates personal history, the complexities of the Filipino family, and the human experience.
19| Weaving Basey by Dinah Roma
Publisher: Katig Writers Network Inc.
Award-winning poet Dinah Roma traces the origins of Weaving Basey to the day Typhoon Yolanda wrecked Eastern Visayas. The professor indulges readers in the personal and historical narratives that built Basey. Roma calls it "an emotional and historical pilgrimage" as she sifts through the texture of the coastal town's communal history, referencing significant events like the 16th-century Moro slave trades, the Pulahanes uprisings, and the Balangiga Massacre, among others.
20| Songs From Manunggul by Charlie Samuya Veric
Publisher: Ateneo De Manila University Press
A sensational collection of poems by Charlie Samuya Veric, Songs from Manunggul is an indictment of the burden of diaspora. It follows the lives of four people who come from one extended family as they grapple with their longing for a home they can never have. With this understanding of scattered lives, the poems traverse time and distance, space and passage, and, of course, life and death. The beauty of the collection can perfectly be summarized by the lyrics, "The earth is the residence of the dispersed; home is borne by memories."
21| Kalahating Bahaghari by Ricky Lee
Publisher: Ricky Lee Writing Services
In Kalahating Bahaghari, National Artist Ricky Lee delivers an engrossing saga that critiques certain ideas of hierarchy and toxic romanticized ideals enforced by a fascist state—and how they trickle down to our own identities and relationships. Here, we can sense how the rot that comes from macho leaders is closely connected to the violence committed against the queer community; and, by extension, a neo-feudal society's hostilities toward any ideas of ideology, sex, and gender that deviate from the norm.
22| Stories from Kalinga: Memoir of a Village Girl by Joan Saga-oc
Publisher: Balangay Books
Stories from Kalinga: Memoir of a Village Girl by Joan Saga-oc tell readers about a fading past for communities on the fringes. It shows how they navigate their transition to modernity in terms of their culture and traditions. The Philippine Air Force officer chronicles the difficulty of life in 1990s Kalinga as a young girl in a community of just 20 families. From the subject of child labor and corporal punishment to calamity and poverty, these vignettes shed light on the hard lives of people in the Northern Philippines. It also happens to celebrate the wisdom of the Indigenous community in Uma, Lubuagan.
23| Six Filipino Women for Justice (Edited by Asuncion David Maramba)
Publisher: San Anselmo Publications, Inc.
Leila de Lima, Leni Robredo, Maria Ressa, Risa Hontiveros, Conchita Carpio Morales, and Sister Mary John Manazan are all wonderfully profiled in Six Filipino Women for Justice. It chronicles their individual political journeys in the context of a larger fight against a problematic political system and patriarchal society. This anthology celebrates the contributions of six women who continue to challenge oppressive systems, tackling issues like gender inequality, political repression, and social injustice in the Philippines.
24| Sa Dáko Pa Roón, Sa Dáko Paroón: Mga Pilîng Sanaysay Mula Palawan Hanggang Gunitâ by Eli Rueda Guieb III
Publishers: Eli Rueda Guieb III and Aklat Ulagad
Sa Dáko Pa Roón, Sa Dáko Paroón: Mga Pilîng Sanaysay Mula Palawan Hanggang Gunitâ draws from the topography of northern Palawan. Eli Rueda Guieb III sifts through his diary entries from 1997 to share stories about living with the Tagbanua Kalamianen, Tagbanua Tandulanen, and Cuyonon, as well as foreign fishermen who ended up settling in the village. The writer and anthropologist also reference the varied cultures and traditions that inform the communities' oral literature and knowledge systems.
25| Infinite Lives, Infinite Deaths by Douglas Candano
Publisher: Penguin Random House SEA
There's an intersection of horror, metafiction, sci-fi, and more in Infinite Lives, Infinite Death, that makes it such an intriguing read. The genre-breaking novel crafts a gloriously nightmarish image of Manila, incorporating elements from world mythology, Philippine history, and Chinese-Filipino experiences. Readers will be shocked and delighted by the stream of deranged absurdities that the collection commits.
26|Â It Is Time to Come Home: New & Collected Poems by Marjorie Evasco
Publishers:Â Milflores Publishing, Inc. and De La Salle University Publishing House
It Is Time to Come Home: New & Collected Poems is the winner of the 21st Gintong Aklat Award for Best Book of Poetry in English and the Philippine Literary Arts Council Prize for Best Book of Poetry in English at the 42nd National Book Awards. A gathering of Marjorie Evasco's new and old poems from out-of-print books, it's a glimpse into the poet's writing life. As Evasco writes in her preface, it allows readers "to follow the layered paths of my writing life from the time I crossed my home's threshold in 1973 to go elsewhere, only to return again and again, in various magical and meandering ways, to the kiss of poetry on my forehead."
27| AntiMarcos by Khavn
Publisher: Ateneo De Manila University Press
AntiMarcos functions in a different stratosphere of unpredictability. Here, readers will see how we can further break the conventions of the novel, from its anti-realistic text to its experimentation, as Soledad S. Reyes pointed out. National Artist for Literature Resil B. Mojares had this to say about Khavn, too: "Genre-bending, border-crossing, and risk-taking writers unsettle the literary field. This keeps the field open, vital, and alive. Intellectually adventurous, inventive, and promiscuous, Khavn is a writer Philippine literature needs."
