Maestro storyteller, Danton’s upcoming book is a collection of short stories. A young boy and his sisters gather beautiful shells on the beach as mementos for a country they are leaving behind. A girl who loves the Beatles sees dwarves that are drawn charcoal-black on a white plate. A rich matron in Singaporean discovers a primeval thing in her ritzy penthouse.
Some of the stories are written in the realistic mold, poking fun at a colorful but violent dictatorship or tracking the love growing inside a young man’s heart.
The others are written in the fantastic mode—fables, parables, origin tales, legends, cheeky rewriting of rural lores, and urban legends.
Some are flash fiction, or sudden stories, where a micro-universe mirrors a larger one, while the other stories are much longer, with one of them having sweep of a novella.
The stories are meant to entertain but also to instruct, on why the present is just a re-looping of the past, and why love remains constant and true even beyond death. Written with daring and with dash, this book comes from someone described by a reviewer as ‘one of Asia’s best writers.’
Books by Danton, both original works and translations have always met with a resounding enthusiasm amongst the book community of Southeast Asia region and I am sure that this would also appeal widely to people of Philippines.—Chaitanya Srivastava, Penguin Random House India & Southeast Asia
