Ilustrado
Miguel Syjuco
Ilustrado
Miguel Syjuco
One of the New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2010. Shortlisted for the Best First Book in the 2011 Commonwealth Writers Prize.
One of the New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2010. Shortlisted for the Best First Book in the 2011 Commonwealth Writers Prize.
Ilustrado opens with Crispin Salvador, lion of Philippine letters, dead in the Hudson River. His young acolyte, Miguel, sets out to investigate the author’s suspicious death and the strange disappearance of an unfinished manuscript-a work that had been planned not just to return the once-great author to fame but to expose the corruption behind the rich families who have ruled the Philippines for generations. To understand the death, Miguel scours the life, charting Salvador’s trajectory via his poetry, interviews, novels, polemics, and memoirs. The literary fragments become patterns become stories become epic- a family saga of four generations tracing 150 years of Philippine history forged under the Spanish, the Americans, and the Filipinos themselves.
Finally, we are surprised to learn that this story belongs to young Miguel as much as to his lost mentor, and we are treated to an unhindered view of a society caught between reckless decay and hopeful progress. In the shifting terrain of this remarkably ambitious and dari
Review
Michelle Calligaro, freelance reviewer
Illustrado, winner of the Man Asian Literary Prize, is a remarkable debut novel that weaves poetry, stories and interviews with the lives of two men and the history of their beloved homeland.
Miguel is a young student studying in New York under the tutelage of the ‘Lion of Phillipine Letters’ Crispin Salvador. Salvador has for many years been working on his opus – a brilliant novel that will expose the weakness and corruption of his country. Ilustrado opens with the discovery of Salvador dead in the Hudson River, expected suicide. Unconvinced, Miguel becomes obsessed with the missing manuscript and embarks on a biography of this difficult and outspoken man, returning to the Phillipines to meet Salvador’s family and compatriots. Interspersed with his journey are excerpts from Salvador’s poetry, interviews, novels and essays that build a rich narrative of a nation and its troubled history. And it is a story that forces Miguel to confront his own unhappy past.
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