Ulirát: Best Contemporary Stories in Translation from the Philippines

by Tilde Acuña (Editor), John Bengan (Editor), Daryll Delgado (Editor)

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: The 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.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Asia, Anthologies

384 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2021

About the author

Tilde Acuña, author of Oroboro at Iba Pang Abiso (University of the Philippines Press, 2020), teaches at the Department of Filipino and Philippine Literature in the University of the Philippines Diliman. The illustrator of Marlon Hacla’s Melismas (Oomph Press, 2020), Acuña is a co-editor of Ulirát: Best Contemporary Stories in Translation from the Philippines (Gaudy Boy, 2021) and several other upcoming anthologies, including Signos: Anthology of 21st Century Filipino Fiction on Dark Lore and the Supernatural and Destination: SEA 2050 A.D.

Reviews

[Meg]

This took me so Long LOL if these individual short stories were expanded i would have liked it more. but it is Ok

[KT]

An enjoyable collection of Filipino short stories from the quotidian to the fantastic