Land of the Mourning: A Memoir

Set in the exchanges of love letters between two teenage sweethearts, the book offers a gripping account of the author's coming-of-age. After the untimely death of his father when Mandy was nine, his mother took her children to Manila to escape the grueling poverty of a small Bicol village. The move took them to the slums of Tondo. Mandy described the move as "moving from one poverty to more poverty." The unforgiving Tondo environs, Mandy found oppressive for their unhealthy air and gang violence. It was in such an unlikely place that he met Irma, a neighbor who befriended him, sparking a childhood friendship that later blossomed into a first love while they were still in their teens. It was a forbidden true love affair. The social disparities between their families, along with the long-running feud between Irma's family and Mandy's relatives, threatened their young love affair. Embedded in the book narrative is an ethnographic account of Tondo in the 60s and 70s, and what life was like for its inhabitants. It's a story of pure grit in overcoming crippling poverty and the relentless pursuit of ambition for a better life. Mandy's pursuit of an education was his ticket out of the slums and poverty. Among memorable chapters of his remarkable life was his encounter with Tim, his scoutmaster during elementary school, who planted in him the seeds of social consciousness and love of country. A composite character in his personal tale, Tim was the author's mouthpiece for expounding on the colonial and historical trauma that shaped the Filipino identity and consciousness.

Pagina's: 318, Paperback, Hexagram Publishing