1762

by Vin dela Serna Lopez

It is late September 1762, and unbeknownst to the sleepy city of Intramuros, a group of dockyard workers has been plotting to overthrow the Spanish government. But their plans are thrown into disarray when a squadron of ships, flying a strange flag never before seen in the colony, appears on the horizon. A cannon roars. The earth shudders.

The British are coming.

Woken up to their senses, the plotters face the trilemma of which enemy to confront: the Spanish, the British, or their inner demons.

In 1762, Vin dela Serna Lopez weaves an epic that mixes fact with imagination, showing us how tragedies, big or small, echo across centuries.

384 pages, Paperback

Published June 1, 2023

About the author

Vin dela Serna Lopez, pen name of Alvin dela Serna Lopez is a Filipino writer. His early literary works appeared in Philippines Graphic magazine and Entrada Journal. He received the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature in 2019 for his poetry and in 2022 for his debut novel '1762' (Special Prize for the Novel).

Reviews

[Frankie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I could write a review about how this historical fiction novel is incredibly evocative, beautifully written, hypnotic and clearly well-researched. I could also mention that, despite the fact that it's set in 1762, it is so obviously a contemporary novel from 2022, wherein all the historical facts are just meant to be metaphors for the 21st century. Lopez clearly wants to ask the questions that our nation still faces today, in 2025: why are we so distracted by in-fighting all the time? why do we keep following corrupt leaders who just want to oppress us? why have we, as Catholics, forgotten God and committed such evil?

It was an enjoyable read, but I was distracted by this obvious fourth-wall breaking. The worst is the gigantic chapter on a psychic character who sees the future and sees Jose Rizal. Why does a Filipino novel set in 1762 HAVE TO reference Jose Rizal? It reminds me of that article I once read in a Japan Foundation publication: Filipino literature's growth has been stunted, because we are still trapped by the idea that a novel has to be an epic story about revolutions and star-crossed romances. I cannot stop thinking about the fact that 1762 is a really good novel for Filipino contemporary literature (it won the Palanca in 2022! But that didn't prevent the punctuation errors lol where was your editor)... but its clear desire to be a Palanca award winner, aka its obsession with referencing cultural points that only appeal to the Filipino literary ivory tower... is what prevents it from being a great (not just good) global novel, period.

Lastly, from a feminist perspective, this novel is not... it. I suppose one could argue that Lopez was just being realistic. He depicted the powerlessness of women back in the 18th century, especially lower-class women. But there is a very strong Madonna-Whore Complex throughout the whole thing. My beloved Catalina is intelligent, both head strong and physically strong (she is a kitchen maid), and takes on the mantle of the rebellion after her father dies and her brother goes missing on a stupid personal vengeance quest. When the rebellion fails (through no fault of her own), she is raped in vivid detail... TWICE... and then forced to become the lover of the British general. It was very satisfying to see her eventually punish her tormenter at the end (I was cheering her on!) but that success was short-lived because she would be eventually victimized by another man she trusted: a family friend and her unrequited love who attacks her because he misreads the situation and wishes to white-knight and save his beloved Divina Paulina.

Divina Paulina, by contrast, is a young, innocent, good girl who is perfectly chaste, pious, and pure. She's basically your Maria Clara. Her only flaw is the fact that she has bizarre psychic powers; she can see the past and the future, but nobody believes her, the poor Cassandra. She's shuffled from her father's protection to a convent when he can no longer care for her due to the war. The convent's head mother has a low opinion of this good girl because of her psychic abilities, and honestly, if that isn't the realest thing... Internalized misogyny enforcing punishment upon other women is like, peak all-girls school realness lol.

But back to my point -- only Divina Paulina is spared because of her goodness. A man falls in love with her but she doesn't return his feelings. In fact, she has no feelings or memories of her own, outside of her piety and psychic abilities. She is a sexless creature, a porcelain doll for men to cherish and protect, and that is the only way she can exist.

I have to give the author credit. This novel is excellently written. But considering that it is a Palanca awardee and is Literary Fiction to a tee, then I think it can survive this criticism. That said, you could probably read this and treat it as a normal historical fiction novel and enjoy it a lot! But if you dig deeper, especially as a woman, then that's where it gets a little frustrating.

[Freya Luna · Rating 5 out of 5]

First Goodreads review: the book is amazing and it deserves more hype! It was like watching a movie. Again, it's well-researched and nuanced to the point that I can imagine how things per scene would smell like– from the shit and salt air in the seas in the voyage to Acapulco, blood, sweat, and gunpowder, to the cholera infested Pasig river (again, this is just how I would imagine the Philippines by this time). The author's profound knowledge in politics is also evident. The only thing that was quite a concern for me is that I also needed to do my own research and it requires time and focus to read. Perhaps because during my college days, we only briefly discussed the 1762 British Invasion of Manila and my memory of it was hazy that I had to read the first three chapters twice before I could have a good insight on the narratives. I picked this up because of the cover and the genre, and I remembered my wide grin because it's the only copy left in the local bookstore. I felt like I was in luck! It is such a privilege to read and enjoy something like this. It made me so angry by the end, but it's the good kind where it makes you feel like you gotta do something to never go through such oppression again. It's got that Heneral Luna (movie) vibe where you're really made to think and ponder in the end. To me, this is the "teeth and claws" of the book, and these characteristics are worthy of 5 stars, if not, MORE THAN THAT. Nevertheless, this debut novel is really something that's worth picking up from the book store Filipiniana section and the Palanca is well-deserved.

[Rise]

The historical novel 1762 was an attempt to unpack and synthesize the entire Spanish colonial history of the Filipinas. 1762 was just a post-colonial launching pad to question the innumerable failings and betrayals that accompanied all nascent Philippine revolutions.

The variety of war weapons described in the novel, the human and economic costs of war (graphic, gruesome), the introduction of a fascinating cast of characters (an ensemble) and their blistering portraits and their Conradian motivations (by all means, read Nostromo), the evocative Joaquínesque language, with wayward phrases invoking irony and crackling with dissent and wit, the universal bottom-lines of a war economy, the natural history of empire, the natural history of destruction (read: W. G. Sebald), the looting and pillaging and rape, political wrangling, chaos pre- and post-Brexit.

This period film was anything but grandiose production design and stirring musical score and snappy editing, although the battle scenes within the fortifications of Manila were assembled with the same frenetic pacing of some of Samuel Pepys's diary entries. The novelist wanted to move back the reckoning of popular Filipino revolutionary history to an earlier date, further expanding a conception of that history as embedded in a world war.

I called Vin's novel (inaccurately) a steampunk novel in this blog post.

Can we say that the Ukraine War or the Gaza War was 1762 redux? I say that would be a stretch. Yet Walter Benjamin probably would (see this post).

More than a rewinding of history (there's a breathless "rewind" scene of Rizal's execution), the novel fast forwarded to historical and timeless truths about human avarice and capacity for violence. 1762's entrada was masterful, its ending open-ended and close-fisted. A sui generis first novel, a historical exercise that is romantic and disillusioning at the same time. A preview or dry run of Philippine nationalism or nationalist tendencies, an early framing (or reframing) of a community imagined (or reimagined) in an age of globalization. A novel excavation in the rubble pile of history. The story-teller as historian; the novelist as angel of history, circa 1762.

[Gabriela Francisco · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Why is it that we all share a single vision, but no one knows how to get there?”
“How can we know? We do not even have an idea who we are.”

Vin dela Serna Lopez’s historical novel 1762 seems bowed down by the weight of its author’s baroque prose. Throughout the entire novel, this reader found herself wondering who was the intended audience for this work. While admirable for its pioneering venture into a relatively unknown topic, as well as its’ six-year gestation, it makes enormous demands on the casual lay reader.

(Read the rest on https://exlibrisphilippines.com/2024/... )

[Jake Allen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Haunted by Empire: Postcolonial and Feminist Reflections on British Imperialism in Lopez’s 1762

1762 by Vin De La Serna Lopez

Lopez’s 1762 emerges as a meticulously crafted historical fiction novel that reimagines the British invasion of Manila, yet its resonance extends far beyond the confines of the eighteenth century. Beneath its lush historical detail lies a distinctly modern consciousness that turns the past into a mirror for the Philippines’ unending struggles with corruption, faith, and fractured national identity. The author does not merely reconstruct history—he reconfigures it as a parable for the nation’s current political malaise. Much like Lisandro E. Claudio argues in Liberalism and the Postcolony, colonialism in the Philippines did not end with the departure of the colonizers; rather, its structures and moral hierarchies were internalized, shaping a society that continues to mimic the very systems it once resisted. Lopez’s narrative transforms 1762 into a metaphor for the cyclical nature of oppression—wherein the oppressed become the new agents of subjugation.

Viewed through a postcolonial lens, the novel dramatizes how the colonial encounter remains an open wound in Filipino identity. The rebellions and betrayals within the story echo the “imagined communities” of Benedict Anderson, where nationalism itself becomes a performance of memory rather than an achieved reality. Lopez toys with this historical imagination, making the eighteenth-century setting a stage for contemporary anxieties: the persistence of internal divisions, the blind allegiance to corrupt leaders, and the moral hypocrisy cloaked in religiosity. The inclusion of a psychic character who envisions José Rizal, though jarring, speaks to the Filipino literary obsession with nationalism’s founding icons. This fixation, as Caroline Hau discusses in Necessary Fictions: Philippine Literature and the Nation, reflects how literature often becomes both a vessel for patriotism and a constraint that limits creative liberation. Lopez’s awareness of this paradox turns his novel into a meta-commentary on the national canon—ambitious in scope yet still haunted by the specter of Rizal and the expectation of “epic revolutions.”

However, the novel’s greatest tension lies in its portrayal of women. Through a feminist reading, 1762 reveals the deep entrenchment of patriarchal archetypes inherited from the colonial period. Carolyn Brewer’s Shamanism, Catholicism, and Gender Relations in Colonial Philippines explains how Spanish colonization supplanted the precolonial babaylan—a figure of spiritual and communal authority—with the Virgin and the witch, effectively reducing womanhood to a moral binary. Lopez’s female characters seem to live within this inherited framework. Catalina, the strong-willed kitchen maid turned revolutionary, embodies resistance and agency but is ultimately punished for transgressing patriarchal expectations through repeated sexual violence. Her suffering, rendered in disturbing detail, exposes how female rebellion is tolerated only as tragedy. Meanwhile, Divina Paulina, the chaste visionary, is the moral opposite: pure, silent, and revered for her spiritual gifts. Her psychic power, which could have been a symbol of female autonomy, becomes a burden that isolates her, reinforcing the archetype of the sanctified yet powerless woman.

This binary reflects what Denise Cruz identifies in Transpacific Femininities: The Making of the Modern Filipina—that Filipina identity has long been caught between the nationalist ideal of moral purity and the colonial expectation of docility. Catalina and Divina Paulina embody this tension: one punished for desire, the other rewarded for abstinence. Even the convent setting, with its oppressive hierarchy of women policing one another, illustrates what Genevieve Alva Clutario calls the “beauty regimes” of empire, where women internalize colonial ideals and perpetuate their own subjugation. Lopez captures this tragic continuity: the colonial state may have fallen, but its moral architecture endures through religion, gender roles, and societal expectations of female virtue.

Lopez’s depiction of power, faith, and violence also mirrors the nation’s contemporary political structure. His colonial officials and native elites serve as prototypes for the modern Filipino politician—charismatic yet self-serving, cloaking greed in the rhetoric of moral righteousness. The postcolonial state, as Frantz Fanon argues in The Wretched of the Earth, often reproduces the very hierarchies it once resisted. Lopez’s world of 1762 is therefore not just historical fiction but allegory—a reflection of how the Philippines, even in 2025, remains ensnared in cycles of moral decay, political betrayal, and disillusionment disguised as nationalism. The novel’s implicit question—why Filipinos remain distracted by infighting and loyal to corrupt leaders—resonates with painful clarity. The colonial condition has simply evolved, wearing the new mask of democracy.

In literary terms, 1762 is hypnotic, lyrical, and meticulously researched. Its prose is deeply evocative, at times verging on poetic, and its historical detail immerses the reader in a world where superstition, faith, and resistance collide. Yet this beauty is shadowed by a self-consciousness—a palpable desire to appeal to the literary elite that shapes much of Philippine literary production. Lopez’s extensive use of intertextual references, while intellectually ambitious, risks alienating readers outside the Filipino literary ivory tower. It becomes, paradoxically, both a critique of and a participant in the tradition it seeks to transcend.

1762 is a work of remarkable artistry and ambition, but one that exposes the unresolved contradictions of Philippine identity. It is a mirror reflecting both the brilliance and the burdens of the nation’s literary and political history. Through its intertwining of colonial trauma, religious symbolism, and gendered suffering, Lopez’s novel stands as a testament to the persistence of the postcolonial condition. It reminds readers that the struggle for liberation—national, moral, and feminine—remains unfinished. In confronting these inherited wounds, 1762 becomes not just a novel about the past, but a haunting conversation with the present.

[Angela Maree · Rating 2 out of 5]

1762 is a rare attempt to fictionalize the British Occupation of Manila, a period often neglected in both popular media and historical fiction. In that sense, it is a commendable project.

The book is clearly well-researched, designed to appeal to intellectual readers with its layered references to art, history, and literature. Yet these aspirations are undermined by frequent typographical errors. Moreover, its language and tone feel unmistakably 21st-century, pulling the reader out of the historical moment it tries to capture. This disconnect between ambition and execution runs throughout the novel.

I have to warn women readers that the strong, intelligent protagonist falls victim to — surprise — gratuitous graphic rape scenes and a persistent obsession with an unrequited love interest.

Readers interested in the British Occupation may still find fragments of value here, but the novel leaves much to be desired in its storytelling.