A new release from the Ateneo Press Lugar Lang: Dispatch from Davao by Jhoanna Lynn B. Cruz takes readers into the mind of a Mindanawon creative writer as she witnesses and experiences the sociopolitical changes of Davao City and the country in the first half of Rodrigo Duterte’s presidency.
This book compiles Cruz’s column essays published in the Mindanao Times from August 2016 to October 2018. Her words are deeply intimate, delving into her reflections on home and her lesbian identity, as well as how these domains intersect with politics. They are intensely critical of the administration of the time, steadfast in their dissent and calls for justice. Interwoven into these essays is a sense of experimentation—what the author deems “dressing up” the opinion column as it allowed them to creatively continue speaking up amidst online political persecution. One opinion piece is dressed up as a dramatic monologue by Pepsi Paloma’s ghost. Another opinion piece is dressed up as a speculative story set in an alternative universe where then-President Rodrigo Duterte apologizes for his misogynist ways. Cruz embodies defiance—the defiance against the confines of form and the defiance against the suppression of written protest.
Lugar Lang is a testament to Cruz’s courage and resilience to challenge corruption and injustice in the very heart of the Duterte family’s stronghold in Davao. It is a book that will surely ignite the spark of defiance among others, especially writers, not only to challenge the forms in which they write but also the status quo in which they live. As the author said in one of her essays: “But I am confident that the point of each little voice of dissent is to amplify all our voices, which together can become a clarion call for our people to rise as one and take back our democracy. Our history proves it.”
Jhoanna Lynn B. Cruz is full professor of literature and creative writing at the University of the Philippines Mindanao, where she currently serves as dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. Her memoir about rebuilding her life in Davao City, Abi Nako, or So I Thought (2020) is the first lesbian memoir in the Philippines, and her writing has received the Palanca Awards for Literature. She
shares her home in Davao City with her partner, Alexis Bernadette de Guzman, their dog Noodles, and four cats.
Lugar Lang is published by the Ateneo de Manila University Press under the Bughaw imprint. The book retails at PHP 595. It is available at the Ateneo University Press Bookshop in Bellarmine Hall, and the Press’s official Lazada and Shopee stores.
