What: Gina Apostol Book Signing When: April 12, 2014, 6 pm Where: National Book Store, Glorietta 1
Join Philippine National Book Awardee Gina Apostol, author of Gun Dealer’s Daughter and The Revolution According to Raymundo Mata, for a book signing event on April 12, 2014, 6 pm, in National Book Store, Glorietta 1.
ABOUT GUN’S DEALER DAUGHTER A young woman pieces together her troubled past in this story of rebellion and romance set in the Marcos-era Philippines.
Soon after she leaves home for university in Manila, Soledad Soliman (Sol) transforms herself from bookish rich girl to communist rebel. But is her allegiance to the principles of Mao or to Jed, the comrade she’s in love with? Can she really be a part of the movement or is she just a “useful fool,” a spoiled brat playing at revolution?
Far from the Philippines, in a mansion overlooking the Hudson River, Sol confesses her youthful indiscretions, unable to get past the fatal act of communist fervor that locked her memory in an endless loop. Rich with wordplay and unforgettable imagery, Gun Dealers’ Daughter combines the momentum of an amnesiac thriller with the intellectual delights of a Borgesian puzzle. In her American debut, award-winning author Gina Apostol delivers a riveting novel that illuminates the conflicted and little-known history of the Philippines, a country deeply entwined with our own.
TESTIMONIAL ABOUT THE REVOLUTION ACCORDING TO RAYMUNDO MATA “Edward Said wrote that the role of the intellectual is to present alternative narratives on history other than those provided by the ‘combatants’ who claim entitlement to official memory and national identity—who propagate ‘heroic anthems sung in order to sweep all before them.’ In this fearlessly intellectual novel, Gina Apostol takes on the keepers of official memory and creates a new, atonal anthem that defies single ownership and, in fact, can only be performed by the many—by multiple voices in multiple readings Raymundo Mata, appropriately blind, exists in a parallel universe where perception is always in question, and memory and the Filipino identity are turned inside out.” -Eric Gamalinda, author of The Empire of Memory
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Gina Apostol won the Philippine National Book Award for her first two novels, Bibliolepsy and The Revolution According to Raymundo Mata. She lives in New York City and western Massachusetts.