Bibliography of Philippine novels in English translation, 2

I once made a list of Philippine novels that have been translated into English in 2014 (see this post). I have updated this list. The complete list (as of December 2018) could be viewed in this spreadsheet in Google Docs. Further additions will be reflected in the same spreadsheet.

Several things could be observed from this list.

1. The translation of Philippine novels into English is a recent phenomenon.

Out of 25 novels in English translation, only six were published in the previous century. These six novels were written in either Spanish or Hiligaynon languages. The remaining 19 appeared in the 21st century (2006-2018). To date, the translations were produced from four source languages: Tagalog or Filipino (10), Spanish (6), Cebuano (5), and Hiligaynon (4). Vernacular Philippine languages with strong novelistic tradition still have to be represented.

2. Filipino male novelists were translated more than female novelists.

No surprise there. There were 16 translated novels by male writers (64%) while there were only 9 by women writers (36%).

3. The translated books are relatively hard to access, even for those living in the Philippines.

All novels in the list, except for the first three Spanish novels, were originally published in the Philippines. José Rizal's novels were originally published in Berlin and Ghent while Pedro Paterno's Nínay was published in Madrid.

More than half (13) were mainly published by academic publishers. This means that they were not stocked in mainstream bookstores. I had a hard time seucring a copy of the two 2018 translated titles. The two university publishers (Ateneo de Naga University Press and University of San Carlos Press) do not have an online bookstore from which to order books. They do have Facebook pages where I can send a direct message, wait for a relatively long time for the reply, give my order, pay in a bank or a cash transfer service, and wait for the book sent through courier.

As to availability as ebooks or hard copy, I think only Rizal's novels (the recent Penguin editions) were prominently available.

4. Filipino novels serialized in weekly magazines in the last century were a goldmine of possible materials for translation.

At most 10 novels in the list were first published in weekly serials in Philippine magazines in the 20th century. These were mainly the works of Ramon L Muzones and Magdalena Jalandoni in Hiligaynon, Austregelina Espina-Moore in Cebuano, and Macario Pineda and Rosario de Guzman Lingat in Tagalog. Lazaro Francisco's Ilaw sa Hilaga (Light in the North), whose translation is set to appear soon, was first serialized in 1931-32.

Patricia May B. Jurilla, in Bibliography of Filipino Novels: 1901-2000 (The University of the Philippines Press, 2010), listed a total of 365 titles of novels in Tagalog/Filipino. This was a gross underestimation because she included only those that came out in book form.

Soledad S. Reyes, in Narratives of Note: Studies of Popular Forms in the Twentieth Century (University of Santo Tomas Publishing House, 2012), made an estimate of the total novels in Filipino that appeared in magazine installments and in book form.

In the twentieth century, more than a thousand of novels in Filipino came out, some in book form, many as serialized novels [in weekly magazines and komiks]. The number of novels in English which came out mostly in book form was much smaller.

At present there is no comprehensive bibliography of all the published novels in Filipino. But it is safe to assume that serialized novels published weekly in several magazines—Liwayway (from 1922), Sampagita, Ilang Ilang, Hiwaga, Bulaklak, Aliwan, Tagumpay—and those that came out in book form, especially in the first four decades of the twentieth century, would reach more than a thousand. Liwayway alone would have published a total of 800 novels between 1922 and 1980, at ten novels per year. [emphases added]

Those novels awaiting translation were a veritable goldmine for would-be translators.

5. The list can be longer.

Strictly speaking, the two entries for Isabelo de los Reyes [El Folk-Lore Filipino (vol. 1) and Ang Diablo sa Filipinas ayon sa nasasabi sa mga casulatan luma sa Kastila) could hardly be called novels. The first is a hybrid compendium of folk-lore and other texts while the second is a mere short story. But I included them precisely to question the notion of a novel.

Even if we remove the two from the list, however, there may be others that could take their place. I know for a fact that one or more romance novels, published by the prolific imprint of Precious Hearts Romances (PHR), could qualify. I was hunting for a translated title in the PHR site that I "bookmarked" online but I lost the link.

Also, there are other extant translations that I need to get a copy of first (though this might be impossible) before I add them. I'm not sure if they were published in the first place or they contain complete translations or just extracts. They were:

a. Translations of novels of Lazaro Francisco by the scholar Mona P. Highley. They were probably just drafts. [Soledad S. Reyes mentioned about it in her introduction to Halina sa Ating Bukas (Welcome to Our Tomorrow) by Macario Pineda.]

b. Translation of the Tagalog novel Banaag at Sikat (Dawn and Sunrise) by Lope K. Santos (1879-1963). According to N.V.M. Gonzalez [in The Novel of Justice], Mariano C. Javier wrote a critical reading and a complete English translation of this novel in A Study of the Life and Works of Lope K. Santos, with Special Reference to Banaag at Sikat (Unpublished Master's Thesis; University of the Philippines, 1960).

c. Translation of Jovito S. Abellana's novel in archaic Cebuano language, Aginid: Bayok sa Atong Tawarik (Aginid: Ode to Our History) (1952). According to Resil B. Mojares [in his critical introduction to the translation of Vicente Gullas's Lapulapu: The Conqueror of Mangellan], Aginid is a hybrid text consisting of a poem (bayok) written in baybayin (ancient alphabet), with interlinear translation into Romanized Cebuano. Its Pale Fire-ish quality makes me curious. Mojares's extended analysis of Abellana's work and critique of the text's provenance made me want to get a copy of the translation by Romola O. Savellon, A Translation and Critical Analysis of the Dance-Epic "Aginid Bayok sa Atong Tawarik" by Jovito Abellana (Cebu City: Cebu Normal University, 2010), Cultural Heritage Monograph Series on Indigenous Culture. Despite being packaged as a historical artifact, Mojares says that "Aginid should not be read as a folk document or historical chronicle but a piece of imaginative literature, an admirable, artistic fiction which should be justly recognized as such in studies of Cebuano literature.

I own 23 of the 25 titles and read 20 from the list so far. The two titles I lack (Jalandoni's The Lady in the Market and Gangcuangco's Orosa-Nakpil, Malate) were out of print.


PHILIPPINE NOVELS IN ENGLISH TRANSLATION