Novel
Dekada '70
Lualhati Bautista · 1983
Synopsis
In Manila, Amanda Bartolome, a middle-class housewife, at first has no worries beyond her five rowdy sons and the neighbours' complaints. When martial law is proclaimed, the eldest, Jules, joins the armed revolution, and the violence of the times reaches the family. As each of her sons goes his own way, Amanda questions her place as a mother, a woman and a Filipina, between the wish to protect her children and the need for change.
Context
The novel received in 1983 the Palanca grand prize for the novel in Filipino and appeared the same year. In 2002 Chito S. Roño made a film of it, from a screenplay by the author, with Vilma Santos as Amanda, and a musical adaptation was staged in 2018 at the University of the Philippines. An English translation by Clarisse B. De Jesus is published by the author, and Penguin Classics offered in 2022 to take it on. The book has not been translated into French.
Who it is for
To live through martial law in the Philippines through a mother's eyes, in a classic of Tagalog literature.
Prizes and reception
The magazine WHO wrote in 1984 that it is a book every Filipino, committed or not, should read at least once.