''Three Filipino Women: Novellas'' is a book authored by award-winning Filipino literary writer,

F. Sionil José Francisco Sionil José (December 3, 1924 – January 6, 2022) was a Filipino writer who was one of the most widely read in the English language. A National Artist of the Philippines for Literature, which was bestowed upon him in 2001, José's ...

. The book is a compilation of three novellas, each narrating a segment in the life and experiences of three

women in the Philippines The role of women in the Philippines ( fil, Kababaihan sa Pilipinas) is explained based on the context of Culture of the Philippines, Filipino culture, standards, and mindsets. The Philippines is described to be a nation of strong women, who dir ...

, providing the reader a journey to the "mentality and geography of the Philippines" and to the use of English as a language that the characters are "trying to make their own", reflective of how a Filipino speak in

Philippine English Philippine English (similar and related to American English) is any variety of English native to the Philippines, including those used by the media and the vast majority of educated Filipinos and English learners in the Philippines from adj ...

, characterized by being "heavy on the reflexive" (similar to the speaking style used by Ferdinand Marcos) and with its own form of "phrasing" and "edge of formality".

Description

One of the male narrators in the novellas was an educated man trying to "come to terms with post-colonial corruption, sexuality and women" tells the stories about three Filipino women who lived in three periods in

Philippine history Earliest hominin activity in the Philippine archipelago is dated back to at least 709,000 years ago. ''Homo luzonensis'', a species of archaic humans, was present on the island of Luzon at least 67,000 years ago. The earliest known anatomically ...

: one who lived during the late 1960s, another who lived in the 1970s, and the other lived in the early 1980s, all of whom experienced the politics and "their passions" during their own respective eras. The three novellas in the collection include ''Obsession'', ''Platinum'', and ''Cadena de Amor'' (literally "Chain of Love"). Three female characters were portrayed in each novella: one of a prostitute named Ermi (the "expensive call-girl") in ''Obsession'', the other of a student political activist named Malu in ''Platinum'', and another is of a politician named Narita in ''Cadena de Amor''. All the men acting as story-tellers in the novellas each hoped to have "a transcendent experience with the woman who fascinates him--but cannot escape the sense of his own corruption". The three novellas explored the "character of a Filipina, and by extension" of the Filipinos, their society and their nation.

Publication history

The current compilation titled ''Three Filipino Women'' was published by

Random House Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...

in the United States in 1992. Prior to that, two of the novellas were published by The Cellar Bookshop in the Philippines on December 28, 1981 as a 104-page book under the title ''Two Filipino Women'' (., One of the novellas, whose protagonist is named Ermi, a prostitute, was included as a chapter in a full-length 1988 novel titled '' Ermita: A Filipino Novel''.

References

1981 novels 1988 novels 1992 novels Novels by F. Sionil José Historical novels Philippine English-language novels Novels set in the Philippines Novels set in the 1960s Novels set in the 1970s Novels set in the 1980s Novellas {{1990s-hist-novel-stub