[Hot Off the Press] Isabela

New release from the Ateneo Press Isabela illustrates complex and intimate portraits of resistance 

Revolutions have never been easy. To resist is to risk losing. For the women in Isabela, there is so much to lose, and yet they trudge forward—through forests of memories and bullets of grief—their spirits persisting because they know no other way. A new release from the Ateneo University Press Isabela by Kaisa Aquino travels back and forth from the city to the countryside, to the past and present, revealing the impact of oppression and insurgency on the lives of ordinary women. 

Spanning three decades of Philippine history, this rich and sensuous saga is a refuge for the voices of a mother, daughter, wife, lover, friend, teacher, cadre, and rebolusyonarya. Through Aquino’s immersive and visceral writing, the reader becomes a close confidant to these characters, seeing through their eyes, feeling the depth of their wounds, and witnessing the complexity of their humanity. Haunting and heartbreaking in its depictions of simple joys and harsh realities, Isabela spends every word and every page illustrating a vast yet intimate landscape of a place, time, and woman.

Marjorie Evasco, professor emeritus at the De La Salle University highlights the strength imbued within the characters: “Anagrammatically presented as the novel unfolds, these women—Ka Julia, Ka Abel, Prof. Isabelle ‘Isang’ Gracia Lagasca, Sabel, Sierra, Belay, Issey, Louisa Isabelle Narciso, Karina, Patis, Celine—seek what they desire ‘going on, and on, and on, despite, despite, despite’ getting physically and metaphysically wounded, traumatized, bereft of their homes and loved ones, and eventually healed by the will to love and by hidden pockets of the countryside’s beauty, like the Sierra Madre mountainside blooming with varying shades of blue and purple hydrangeas.”

Ruth Jordana L. Pison from the Department of English and Comparative Literature at the University of the Philippines Diliman draws focus to the intricate relationships within the book, how it explores in detail the “accompanying pain of those who leave, those who are left behind, and even of those who return. It is about the hurt of losing a mother, a daughter, a brother, a lover, a friend, a comrade. It is about failure and guilt and, unsurprisingly, also about hope and happiness, elusive as they may be.”

Isabela invites readers to step into the lives of these women and the realities they mirror. Though their stories are not told enough, we will recognize them. A line from the first chapter says: “You are these women, at one point, in the past, somewhere in the future. In another life.” This book is a reminder that there is no end to resistance. And so we are called to witness such stories, such histories unfold, so they may never be forgotten. 

About the Author

Kaisa Aquino teaches at the Department of Fine Arts, Ateneo de Manila University. Her work has appeared in Katipunan, Likhaan, The Best Asian Short Stories 2019, and in PA-LIWANAG (Translating Feminisms). She was born in Isabela. 

Isabela by Kaisa Aquino is published by the Ateneo de Manila University Press under the Bughaw imprint. The book retails at PHP 450 and is available at the Ateneo University Press Bookshop in Bellarmine Hall, and the Press’s official Lazada and Shopee stores.

Get your copy in paperback: Lazada | Shopee