Isabela

A Novel

Kaisa Aquino

• Publisher: Ateneo de Manila University Press
• Year: 2024
• eBook ISBN: 9786214484416
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literature General
• Index: Literature

A mother, daughter, wife, lover, friend, teacher, cadre, rebolusyonarya: these are the voices that make up the rich, sensuous saga in Isabela, told against the backdrop of nearly three decades of our history. Here is the story of how a life is shaped, wounded, and made whole by the ongoing insurgency in the countryside. How a life takes on many forms, by force or fate. At both turns urgent and meditative, rare and banal, Isabela draws a memorable landscape of a place, time, and woman.

"Kaisa Aquino's first novel, Isabela, is a lyrical confluence of stories of the land and the women whose lives are shaped by the contours of Isabela, in the Cagayan Valley, and three decades of the continuing people's war for social justice and liberation."

—Marjorie Evasco,
author of It Is Time to Come Home

"In Aquino's novel, Isabela is both actual place and Woman, both a haven for stories from the periphery—those about the women whose personal lives are interlaced with the collective struggles of the underground movement. Experimental. Poignant."

—Sarah Lumba-Tajonera,
author of The Shoemaker's Daughter

Table of contents

• PROLOGUE: Wounded Woman
• Isang
• Issey
• Ka Abel
• Sabel
• Belay
• Celine and Lou-Lou Belle
• Balong
• Wounded Woman
• Acknowledgments