Lumbay ng Dila (Tongue’s Melancholy) reveals the trauma and wisdom of Sadyah Zapanta Lopez, the abandoned daughter of revolutionary leaders in the island of Panay in the Visayas archipelago in the Philippines, and her search for her mother, and the truth in the murder case against her politician grandfather during the Marcos period, as she navigates a series of romantic relationships with a Chinese-Filipino law student, a Muslim-Filipino skilled-worker, and a Manila-based Indian businessman. It is provocative in its subject, style, and language. An engaging must-read and study on herstories, domestic intimacies, local politics and history, the archipelagic imagination, the polyphony in contemporary Philippine literature, and the (re)making of the Filipino as a national language.
Balay Sugidanun 