PEN TO LAUNCH NEW TITLES FROM ATENEO DE NAGA PRESS

The Philippine PEN (Poets & Playwrights, Essayists, Novelists) will host the launchng of two new titles from the Ateneo de Naga University Press on March 30, 5 p.m., at Solidaridad Bookshop, Padre Faura Street, Ermita, Manila.

Tito Genova Valiente’s “The Last Sacristan Mayor and the Most Expensive Mass for the Dead” is a collection of eight fantastic tales revolving around the island of Ticao, the author’s birthplace. The stories, according to Valiente, are his way of recounting and “finishing” the magical stories told to him by Erlina, their household help, while he was growing up in Ticao, Masbate.

Characters include demons guarding the sacred belfry, the lover Onglo, a half-horse/halfman creature that feeds on moonbeams, the women of the lost procession and Lolo Doroy, the last sacristan mayor in the island town. Valiente is an anthropologist and teacher and the book includes his essay on enthnography and enchantment.

Elmer Ordoñez’s latest work, “The Saga of the Fugitive Indio Priest,” is a recollection of a life story by a certain Don Lino Alindogan, a secular priest who left the priesthood after the Augustinian curate accused him of stealing church funds. Told from the point of view of Elias, here is a kind of writing that blurs the borders between the fiction and the essay.

Aside from the authors, expected to attend are Fr. Wilmer Tria, SJ, and Kristian Sendon Cordero, director and deputy director respectively of the Ateneo de Naga University Press. Event is open to the public. Solidaridad tel. 2541068.