Soledad's Sister by Nonemar Gorgonia.pptx

A Book Presentation by Nonemar Gorgonia MA 2nd Yr. EPC SoLA, KMUTT 25 October 2020

BUTCH DALISAY EARNED HIS B.A. ENGLISH (IMAGINATIVE WRITING) DEGREE, CUM LAUDE FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF THE PHILIPPINES IN 1984. HE LATER RECEIVED AN M.F.A. FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN IN 1988 AND A PHD IN ENGLISH FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN–MILWAUKEE IN 1991 AS A FULBRIGHT SCHOLAR. GENRE: FICTION, POETRY, DRAMA, NON-FICTION AND SCREENPLAY LITERARY CAREER: 30 PUBLISHED BOOKS IN 1984 AND MANY . . . AWARDS AND ACHIEVEMENTS: 5 CULTURAL CENTER OF THE PHILIPPINES AWARDS FOR PLAYWRITING 16 PALANCA AWARDS IN 5 GENRES THE TEN OUTSTANDING YOUNG MEN (TOYM) OF 1993 AND MANY. . . NOVELS KILLING TIME IN A WARM PLACE, 1992 SOLEDAD'S SISTER, 2008 (2007’ SHORTLISTED THE MAN ASIAN LITERARY PRIZE\" \"SOLEDAD: ROCAMBOLESCO ROMANZO FILIPPINO\" (ITALIAN EDITION), 2009 \"IN FLIGHT: TWO NOVELS OF THE PHILIPPINES\" (A COMBINED US EDITION), 2011 LA SOEUR DE SOLEDAD,\" (FRENCH EDITION), 2013

CRITICS Soledad's Sister is a darkly “Full of narrative surprise, artfully put comic novel of Aurora's together and richly observed. It offers “It highlights the empowering premature homecoming. The an unillusioned, compassionate possibilities and opportunities that can tragedy is not lightened by the portrayal of contemporary society from be found in the very same transnational frankness of the telling but the a Philippine perspective, and is utterly comedy is so potent it brings compelling. The characters engage us in spaces where dangers also lurk.” silent chuckles with its prose the epic yet very local nature of their alive with brilliant asides, snide, quest for dignity and justice. A work of Grace Chin, Lecturer at and scathing ironies. warmth, humanity, and confidence. Universiti Sains Malaysia Soledad’s Sister The 2007 Man Asia Literary Prize Subjected to local and global patriarchal discourses—including motherhood and martyrdom—and their prescribed limits, the female migrant body is rendered marginal, displaced and inferior.

CONTENTS Chapter 8 The scene of the crime Chapter 9 Walking on river Chapter 1 The woman in the box Chapter 10 Building a new home Chapter 2 The relations of the dead Chapter 11 A sorority of grief Chapter 3 A busload of the dead Chapter 12 The shrieking wood Chapter 4 The sight of grief Chapter 13 An outstanding discoloration Chapter 5 Beyond recognition Chapter 14 The fabulous fountain Chapter 6 A gift of sweets Chapter 7 Laundry on the clothesline

CHARACTERS (MAIN) ◼ Soledad V. Cabahug – Soli. She first works in Hong Kong and comes back pregnant. The second time she borrows her sister's identity, worked in Jeddah and comes back dead. ◼ Aurora V. Cabahug – Rory. Soli's younger sister who dreams of becoming a famous singer. She works at a KTV nightclub called the Flame Tree ◼ SPO2 Walter G. Zamora – Walter. A Paez police officer who helps Rory claim her sister's body ◼ Jose Maria Pulumbarit – Jomar, more notoriously known as Boy Alambre for his carnapping skills. He steals the FX used to transport Soli's body and unknowingly steals Soli's corpse along with it. ◼ Narrator : Author

CHARACTERS ◼ Tennyson Yip – Tenny. The Vice Mayor of Paez who frequents the Flame Tree. He is Rory's customer and helps her find means to claim her sister's body. ◼ Mama Merry – the owner of the Flame Tree ◼ Chester and Nancy Lau – Soli's employers in Hong Kong ◼ Hedison Lau – the son of Soli's employers in Hong Kong and the father of Soli's only son ◼ Nai Nai – Chester Lau's mother ◼ Meenakshi – an Indian maid who becomes Soli's companion in Jeddah. She disappears with Soli, but her body is never found.

CHARACTERS ◼ Loulwa – Arabian princess and Soli's employer in Jeddah ◼ Fouad and Amina – Loulwa and Khaled's children ◼ Prince Khaled – A structural engineer and Loulwa's husband ◼ Yusuf – Khaled's manservant ◼ Nathan – Soli's illegitimate son from a teenage boy ◼ Francine – another singer in the Flame Tree

CHARACTERS ◼ Nicomedes Panganiban – Nick. A pianist from Cafe Sonata who gives Rory informal music lessons ◼ Mrs. Cabahug – Rory and Soli's mother. She favors Rory over her elder sister and dies in a fire along with her husband and her son Ditoy ◼ Mr. Cabahug – Rory and Soli's father ◼ Al Viduya – A NAIA security guard ◼ Ditoy – Rory and Soli's brother ◼ Noemi – A young girl involved in a case handled by Walter. She becomes Walter's lover and the cause of his separation from his wife ◼ Bessie – Walter's wife ◼ Paolo – Walter's son ◼ Cosme – Jomar's dead brother who appears in Jomar's fantasy as a ghost along with their father.

SOLEDAD’S SISTER PROSE NOVEL Narrative Novella Lyrical writing: evokes mood, atmosphere and emotion and pleases or broaden the readers thinking (descriptive). Settings and plot : Time and Space (Flashback)

SOLEDAD’S SISTER SUMMARY PLOT “The Woman in the Box\", the story of On a cloud-curtained evening, one Saturday Aurora Cabahug's journey as a corpse in a in August, a corpse arrived in a zinc casket casket from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, to her in a wooden crate at Ninoy Aquino home country. Aurora was one of millions International Airport, 237 kilometers west of of Filipino workers scattered all over the Paez. The cargo manifest put the dead world who left the Philippines in droves in woman’s name down as “Cabahug, Aurora order to bring home the dollar, or riyal or V.” At 1834 hours, just as the city’s drivers whatever currency can fill empty pockets. began switching their headlights on and a Lacking sufficient source of income at million gas stoves roared to life, Aurora V. home, they were swayed into working day Cabahug’s flight rejoined the earth, although jobs abroad to earn enough for a few years the woman herself did not, just yet; she lay and then come home to live the Filipino deep in the Gulf Air 747’s cargo bay where it dream. There's a profession for every was coldest, a bulkhead away from the tiger determined person. orchids and the apricots. [Summary 1 of 4]

These were the maids, cooks, drivers, and vulcanizing shops in search dancers, plumbers, draftsmen, of better jobs—in roiling sea welders, able-bodied seamen, and and burning sand, from other purveyors of sundry services Singapore to Stockholm, and trades who had left their London to Lagos, Riyadh to kitchens, pigsties, classrooms, fruit Reykjavik, in backstreet bar and stands, videoke bars, shoe factories, oil rig, in nursing home and cannery, in wave after leaping wave across all the seas and oceans that ringed their island. [Summary 2 of 4]

In exchange for financial gain, they had Along with hard-earned dollars, to make the sacrifice of leaving their some were unlucky enough to also children, spouses, parents, siblings, earn bruises, scratches, and marks and friends. They had to brave the of flat iron on their back. Some had discrimination and abuses that some to escape their place of work and intolerant foreigners heap on them. run to the Philippine embassy to Sometimes Filipino women who were report the physical assault and taken in as domestic helpers were torture they suffered under their maltreated by their employers. cruel employers. One also hears of news reports of a Filipina leaping from a high building in order to escape male employers who were about to rape them. [Summary 3 of 4]

The government, instead of creating But some 600 of them—the likes of attractive jobs at home, was complicit Aurora Cabahug who was dead from in this diaspora. Grateful for the cash a mysterious drowning and Filemon that their Overseas Filipino Catabay who was beheaded for some Workers (OFWs) bring home, the reason—yearly arrived in Ninoy government hailed them as bagong Aquino International Airport in boxes, bayani (modern-day heroes). Their sealed tight and properly tagged with sacrifices and martyrdom were a big names and other identifying factor in bolstering the economy. information. Those who were hardworking and lucky managed to come home moneyed and triumphant. [Summary 4 of

EXCERPT PAGE 6 And so it happened that a family of seven had come all the way in a jeepney from Lingayen to meet and to claim the two segments of Filemon Catabay, who had been executed three months earlier. They had learned of his death the way many others did—after it happened, from a routine news report on DZXL, between an involved discussion of a movie star's rumored abortion and a commercial for a new and more potent livestock dewormer. The man's mother was gutting fish when her grandson ran in with the news; the fish she was holding trembled in her hand and then leapt out altogether in a final spasm, as though it had come back to life.

EXCERPT PAGE 137 (FLASHBACK) Back in here dressing room she had tried to force the tears but couldn’t; all her emotions had gone into her songs, and they felt truer than this strange slow-working shock that she had last left when she saw her parents’ and her brother’s steaming carcasses being shoveled out of embers. Here and now, a stranger in what could well have been a foreign city, her aloneness cored her.

THE SOCIAL ◼ The people’s culture SIGNIFICANCE OF THE NOVEL e.g. The Filipinos who have experienced emigration, whether personal reasons and uplift their families in the home country or strive for better life overseas. (cr. Wiki) ◼ The reflection of “Filipino Society” today e.g. Poverty, Education, Career, Behavior, Workplace, Habits It shows the abuses suffered by Filipino migrant workers in foreign countries, and the abuses that they are again subjected to in their home country. (cr.Wiki)