- Published: 23 November 2021
- ISBN: 9789814954044
- Imprint: PRH SEA
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 352
- RRP: $37.00
The House on Calle Sombra - A parable
- Published: 23 November 2021
- ISBN: 9789814954044
- Imprint: PRH SEA
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 352
- RRP: $37.00
“The author’s fluid writing style and her ability to capture the nuances of Filipino inter-relationships make this novel a riveting and compelling read. It is storytelling at its best.”
CHECHE LÁZARO, acclaimed Philippine broadcaster and journalism professor
“The House on Calle Sombra is an epic novel that deals with three generations of the Castillo de Montijo family. Like many Filipino families, the family has mixed bloodlines: Spanish, Muslim, surely layers of Malay and Chinese. The chapter headings and some dialogues are done in three languages—English, Spanish, and Filipino—to mirror the country’s hybrid cultures. The family’s youngest scion is a Tiresias on drugs: a photojournalist covering the Philippines’ infamous anti-drug campaign. The epic sweep is told through a brisk prose style and fragmented sentences. At times, these beautiful sentences sound like heartbeats: quick, foretelling the love and doom in these marvellous pages.”
DANTON REMOTO, Author of Riverrun, A Novel
“It's excellent. The novel is transportive, reminding me of "100 Years of Solitude." I have never set foot there, but it made me feel like I knew the Philippines. The author beautifully describes the rich, complex structures of society, and deftly deconstructs the conditionality of religion, social status, a colonial past, and race.”
Dr. NEVEN ANDJELIC, journalist, author, & Asst. Professor in International Relations and Human Rights, Regent’s University London
‘I loved it. The author’s keen journalist’s eye and deep understanding of the human condition have created a panoply of unforgettable characters and an inescapable world that stays with you long after you turn the last page.’
-Cal Perry, Correspondent, NBC News
‘A beautifully crafted debut novel from Marga Ortigas. I found The House on Calle Sombra to be a moving and complex family saga layered against the backdrop of fictionalised Philippine history.’
-Marc Ocampo, Arts Manager, Arts & Creative Industries, British Council Philippines
“Eye of a journalist, prose of a poet, an exotic tale delicately weaving a nation’s history with a family’s unravelling. A rags-to-riches parable, in an unfamiliar and evocatively recalled landscape, festooning the reader in garlands of uncanny self-realisation.”
NIC ROBERTSON, International Diplomatic Editor, CNN
Marga Ortigas has written a stellar, soaring, gut-crunching multi-generational tale that is certain to set on edge the teeth of Manila's great and good. Like the tunnels in the book, this will take you into a world behind the curtain, revealing the universal truths concealed behind jewels, privilege and power.
SHEILA MACVICAR, Emmy, Peabody & duPont Award-winning international journalist
In her first novel, Ortigas takes us on an intimate exploration of the powerful Castillo de Montijo’s family history. The novel skilfully weaves together the destiny of the Castillo lineage with the secrets of its past. Thus, unfurling a complex plot where we can trace the origin of the family’s fortune deep into the dark pits of its initial motives and ensuing political alliances. Ortigas is as well-measured as she is compelling in depicting the Castillos’ ‘original sin’ as she seamlessly navigates the conceits and schemes of the Filipino elite across the time span of three generations. In ‘The House on Calle Sombra’, a family’s fate is set against the destructive power of systemic violence. In our time, this very type of violence is conspicuously representative of nations where the ruling class along with the structures of governance have grown weaker under the ever-expanding influence of organized crime. Perhaps this is Ortigas’ greatest literary achievement, a well-earned balance in her portrayal of that mysterious place where the inner and outer narratives of our lives come to intersect.
JAVIER SICILIA, Award-winning Mexican poet, novelist, and social activist