Has its close connections with academe enriched or diminished Philippine literature in English? Are there alternatives to academe as literary arbiters? How do contemporary Filipino women writers "perform" the modern wonder tale? These are some of the questions that Hidalgo asks in her latest book.

The author describes the essays in this collection as "mongrols of a sort"--part personal essay and part literary commentary or criticism. The conversations range over the narratives of several generations of women writers, from Maria Paz Mendoza and Edith Tiempo to F. H. Batacan and Tara Sering; and cover conventional realist novels and short stories, as well as fairy tales, chick lit, crime fiction, and war memoirs.

These essays by Philippine and U.S.-based scholars illustrate the dynamism and complexities of the discursive field of Philippine studies as a critique of vestiges of "universalist" (Western/hegemonic) paradigms; as an affirmation of "traditional" and "emergent" cultural practices; as a site for new readings of "old" texts and "new" popular forms brought into the ambit of serious scholarship; and as a liberative space for new art and literary genres.

Here is a rich selection of poetry and short stories representing the best of Philippine writing in English. The selections were made by the distinguished editors at Likhaan, the Creative Writing Center, University of the Philippines.

Philippine short stories in English.