The Balikbayan Artist

Overview

A tale of the artist’s role in troubled times set amid a dictatorshipFarm-laborer-turned-artist Vance Igorta returns to the Philippines as a balikbayan after nearly fifty years in the United States. He is a member of the Manong generation, the largest diaspora of Filipinos who worked physically demanding jobs, mostly in California’s agricultural fields.The Balikbayan Artist—inspired by and dedicated to Venancio C. Igarta (1912–2000), the real-life leading artist of the Manong Generation—takes readers from the early twentieth century to the present day when Vance Igorta’s art is being discovered anew.Igorta’s legacy is validated for allowing his art to address the tensions of his time instead of keeping it solely entrenched in aesthetic concerns. The artist’s choicereflects what he learned as a voraciously self-educated person: that in circumstances where power corrupts, what makes anyone and everyone dangerous is love.

Reviews

“Penguin Random House Southeast Asia goes from strength to strength with each passing year. Some of its most noteworthy books came from the pen of Filipino writers…. The Balikbayan Artist is a novel by US-based writer Eileen R. Tabios."
—Danton Remoto, The Manila Times

"A daughter of the diaspora, Eileen R. Tabios has redefined the word ‘Balikbayan’ to signify existential longing and fortitude. Her gift as a writer is that she allows us space to perceive a myriad of human experiences: desire, loathing, horror, outrage, grief, love. It is this universality that awakens us—to counsel us, Always, always: discern with compassion." —Aileen Cassinetto, Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow & Co-Editor, Dear Human at the Edge of Time

"After exhilarating the poetry world with her marvelously imaginative poetry, Eileen R. Tabios has turned her ever-experimenting, intellectual mindset to the novel. As she did in poetry, her fiction-writing is expanding the landscape of the genre. I know that each of her novels promises to be as unique as each of her poetry collections." —Sandy McIntosh, poet/memoirist, bestselling author & Publisher of Marsh Hawk Press

Author Biography

Eileen R. Tabios has released over seventy collections of poetry, fiction, art, essays, and experimental writings from publishers around the world. Translated into thirteen languages, she has also edited, co-edited, or conceptualized fifteen anthologies, which has involved hundreds of other poets and writers.