Opinion: Separating Art From the Artist and Other Lies We Tell Ourselves

Exploding Galaxies, a publisher that “rediscovers lost classics of Philippine writing,” announced last August 26 that it would reprint Great Philippine Jungle Energy Cafe, a Palanca Grand Prize award-winning novel first published in 1988. Its author, Alfred “Krip” Yuson, is a multi-awarded giant of Philippine literature who was inducted into the Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature Hall of Fame in 2001, recognized by the City of Manila as a Stalwart of Arts and Culture in 2003, and was accused of and admitted to plagiarism in 2011. Yuson issued an apology and the issue, like most controversies committed by popular figures in the Philippines, blew over and was largely forgotten over time.

But some people have better memories and know more dirty secrets than others, so when Exploding Galaxies announced that GPJEC would enter its fourth printing, some people voiced their objections. The objections weren’t merely about Yuson’s plagiarism but his alleged predatory behavior towards women, which some on social media have described as an “open secret” in the Philippine literary world. Plagiarism is one thing, but sexual harassment is a whole other, ugly beast.

As the clamor swelled, Exploding Galaxies initially issued a statement defending their republication, noting the book’s literary merit and inadvertently stepped into shit by attempting to discredit Yuson’s loudest critic as harboring “a longstanding personal grudge against the author.” The critic, Katrina Stuart Santiago, does indeed have some history with Krip Yuson stemming from when she once criticized a column by Patricia Evangelista, whom Yuson supposedly considers his protege or whose literally success he reportedly feels tangentially responsible for. According to Santiago, Yuson tried to get her fired from her job at the Ateneo for it, so it wasn’t without obvious glee that she wrote multiple blog posts about his plagiarism when it happened in 2011.

Fast forward to August 2026, where she makes several references to D.O.M.s, platforming horrible men, and warning against bringing impressionable young female writers into the orbit of predatory men. It’s serious stuff, but as Exploding Galaxies stressed in its initial defense of their republication, the allegations have also “not been proven or independently corroborated.” They’re not wrong. But they aren’t right, either.

In a comment on Exploding Galaxies’ apology, writer Gian Lao raises the validity of informal accusations—which in Yuson’s case appear to be coming from numerous fronts—in a country like the Philippines, “where the justice system routinely fails us.” He explains how many in the literary community, and by extension, really, all communities, have been protected by gossip. “Similar to how literary elders have historically weaponized their influence to protect each other,” Lao writes, “emerging writers weaponized whispers to stay safe.” It’s a flawed, imperfect system that does nobody favors because whispers simply aren’t enough to stop the advances of predatory men (or, sure, women). This is why the public clamor against GPJEC’s fourth printing has merit: it is likely that no victim will ever come forward to speak against Yuson, currently the chairman of the Writers Union of the Philippines and a founding member of some of the country’s most respected literary institutions, because he wields considerable power and influence.

Three days after the post defending their stance, Exploding Galaxies revised their position and announced that it would no longer promote or release Great Philippine Jungle Energy Cafe, capitulating to the growing number and loudness of voices that objected. It’s not an insignificant gesture considering the book was slated to launch on September 10, during the Manila International Book Fair, and there are no doubt pallets of the fourth printing sitting in a warehouse somewhere never to see the light of day.

Exploding Galaxies will write this off as a loss, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s a win for everyone involved, including Yuson, whose place in the echelon of Philippine literature is pretty much secure, and because there’s no such thing as bad publicity. And because Yuson is a man deeply entrenched in the Philippines’ cancer of a padrino system, he will walk away from this unscathed, with a now rare publication to his name and a reputation for womanizing that many men of his generation would consider a good thing.

Among said men of his generation is writer Jose “Butch” Dalisay who, in the midst of all the brouhaha, posted a musing on Facebook that did not just fan the flames of controversy but ignited it with a heaping of napalm, saying:

“Looking at the books in my library, I wonder how many of them I would need to throw away if they were authored by people who, sometime or other, were accused of moral turpitude, political incorrectness, sexual misconduct, poor parenting, drunkenness, drug use, slovenliness, animal cruelty, greed, arrogance, general insufferability, or some such debility of spirit and behavior. I'll bet half these books would vanish in an instant. And then I would wonder if those left behind were as interesting as the ones now in the garbage.

“Does moral or political purity translate to some kind of elevated prose, or more honest and insightful poetry?” he continues. “Can someone please put together a library of vetted literature (or otherwise a new Index Librorum Prohibitorum) to spare us the process, and so we can keep to the straight and narrow, and enjoy reading without guilt or shame?”

Setting aside the fact that Dalisay put sexual misconduct and moral turpitude in the same sentence as slovenliness and poor parenting, did he actually insinuate that being a terrible person contributes to good authorship? It’s a problematic stance that no doubt comes in part from his own proximity to Yuson, but it also poses a valid question: what do we do when the artists we admire turn out to be monsters? Do we abandon their work wholesale, or do we find ways to enjoy their art while turning a blind eye to their failings? There’s no simple answer to this, and it is indeed as nuanced as Dalisay’s badly phrased spectrum of egregious behavior and what it means to support a creator’s work. Santiago’s premise was simple: introducing Yuson’s work to a new audience brought the risk of drawing young women readers, most of whom unprotected by Lao’s “weaponized whispers,” into his orbit. It wasn’t worth it. Exploding Galaxies agreed.

In a larger context, this brings into focus our support for particular creators and what it means to their victims, both past and potential. It changes our reading and appreciation, or critique, as it were, of their works when we truly understand their character. It’s a little easier when it comes to dead authors or artists, who no longer have the power to do active harm. H.P. Lovecraft was so famously racist that he named his cat the N-word, so it’s delightful irony that his work was adapted into black horror in HBO’s Lovecraft Country, featuring African American protagonists.

But it certainly doesn’t make it any less painful, particularly when reexamining an abuser’s work with an informed lens. Pablo Neruda’s legacy as Chile’s greatest poet is forever tainted when his memoirs, published posthumously, contained this chilling confession:

“One morning, I decided to go all the way. I got a strong grip on her wrist and stared into her eyes. There was no language I could talk with her. Unsmiling, she let herself be led away and was soon naked in my bed. Her waist, so very slim, her full hips, the brimming cups of her breasts made her like one of the thousand-year-old sculptures from the south of India. It was the coming together of a man and a statue. She kept her eyes wide open all the while, completely unresponsive. She was right to despise me. The experience was never repeated.”

Only Neruda could write so beautifully about what is very clearly rape. It becomes impossible now, after this, to read "I Like You When You Are Quiet" without feeling a tinge of disgust and the sickening realization that perhaps Neruda didn’t truly love women as much as he objectified and used them. But lord, those words are so achingly beautiful. He writes:

I like you when you are quiet

and it is as though you are distant.

It is as though you are complaining,

butterfly in lullaby.

And you hear me from far away,

and my voice does not reach you:

Let me fall quiet with your own silence.

This is a man celebrating a woman’s silence, her compliance, her powerlessness. What once read as longing in an imagined distance now reads as a man relishing in his control. Is it even possible to enjoy Neruda’s work with this added subtext and not feel guilt? Is it possible to separate the art from the artist? Should we?

Once upon a time, Neil Gaiman’s Morpheus’ stoicism and aloofness were considered endearing character quirks for an otherworldly being. But the Sandman in Gaiman’s The Sandman is actually a toxic male who banished his 16-year old lover to Hell for rejecting him. There’s also a story about a writer who keeps the literal muse Calliope imprisoned and repeatedly rapes her for inspiration. Gaiman, once celebrated as a male feminist, fell from grace in 2024 after a number of women came forward with allegations of sexual assault. This inevitably impacts the appreciation of his work, making it difficult to extricate the author’s character from the ones he’s created.

Gaiman hasn’t been formally charged, and in February this year US Federal judges dismissed Scarlett Pavlovich’s lawsuits against him on the grounds that the incidents happened in New Zealand. But the police in New Zealand found Pavlovich’s sexual allegations meritless, leaving Gaiman’s former nanny with little recourse. The Sandman creator may have scored a legal win but the damage to his reputation has been done and, more importantly, it will no longer be as easy for women to fall into his orbit. Just like Yuson, Gaiman’s reputation with women was apparently an open secret in literary circles. The power structure and hierarchy are eerily the same.

But there’s one critical difference between Neruda and Lovecraft and Gaiman and Yuson: the former two are dead and they no longer pose a threat or can actively harm anyone with bigotry or sexual assault. Enjoyment of their work can still be a challenge, but Lovecraft’s eldritch horror is far easier to enjoy piecemeal for its mythology and can even be subverted to countermand the author’s own racial elitism. Neruda’s poetry, the greatest of which are about love and women, is a little more complicated. The words of a rapist about love simply cannot be trusted, no matter how beautiful they are. Separate the art from the artist, sure, but proceed with caution.

Gaiman and Yuson are both still very much alive, and promotion and consumption of their work directly contributes to whatever cultural capital they have, thereby extending their influence and ability to come into contact with potential victims. Perhaps nobody exemplifies the conundrum of supporting a problematic creator more than J.K. Rowling, who actively uses her considerable resources to marginalize and oppress transgender people. Rowling puts her personal wealth into the J.K. Rowling Women’s Fund, a legal fund that “offers legal funding support to individuals and organizations fighting to retain women’s sex-based rights in the workplace, in public life, and in protected female spaces,” which is longhand for transphobia.

Rowling is far more problematic than either Gaiman or Yuson, who have generally laid low in the midst of their controversies (although Gaiman briefly broke his silence to accuse his accusers of a smear campaign), because Rowling is extremely active on social media and in her actual efforts to harm the transgender community. She built her fortune on Harry Potter, which is now being rebooted as a television series on HBO Max, enabling the property to reach a brand-new audience and open the floodgates for new merch. Who can blame Warner Bros? The franchise is a veritable Gringotts, a seemingly bottomless bank that keeps on churning gold for everyone involved, not least of whom is Rowling herself.

It’s easier to give up Great Philippine Jungle Energy Cafe than either The Sandman or Harry Potter. It’s merely a question of what one values more. In Yuson’s case, perhaps it’s better to err on the side of caution. There’s no shortage of his existing work to consume, if one is so inclined. But choosing not to platform an alleged abuser is the most passive support for victims of sexual assault, and it’s an easy bar to clear. For many people, Harry Potter has become an inextricable part of their lives, a franchise with characters and a world many find comfort in and no shortage of merchandise with which to celebrate one’s fandom. Some point out that a boycott of Harry Potter doesn’t impact J.K. Rowling at all, which is likely true given how the reboot is forging ahead at full steam and the fact that transphobia is alive and well in 2026. In the case of Harry Potter, it is simply this: Rowling has expressly committed to using her time and resources to support transphobia. There is no separating art from the artist when the artist actively uses her art to fund hate.

To address Dalisay’s earlier concern: no, the authors or artists you support don’t need to have some sort of moral or political purity. But it shouldn’t be a hard ask to make sure they aren’t harming anyone, and especially not using their art to fund that harm. The least we can do is channel our support for unproblematic creators because there’s no shortage of them. Avoiding problematic creators is an opportunity for discovery and the most ethical way to show solidarity with victims. Art cannot be separated from the artist, not when these artists continue to pose a threat. It is a lie we sometimes tell ourselves, but we really should know better.

ALSO READ:

The Firewalker

Lives Remembered, Histories Regained