Moondogs author Alexander Yates on growing up in Manila, feeling Pinoy, being alien
There aren’t many novels by foreign authors set in the Philippines. There’s Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson’s massive, genius novel about a crypto-hacker who plans to build a data haven in the Philippines. The description of the protagonist’s walk from the Manila Hotel to Luneta tells us that the author was in town to research his location.
The Blue Afternoon, a novel by the British author William Boyd (A Good Man In Africa), is set in Manila at the turn of the 20th century, but we’re not entirely convinced he was here. Years ago we heard that Brian De Palma wanted to do a film adaptation—Mr. De Palma, call us. The Tesseract, Alex Garland’s novel set in Manila and reportedly written in Quezon province, was adapted for film (Yay!) but relocated to Bangkok (Booo).
Now there’s Moondogs, a novel about the kidnapping of an American businessman in the Philippines that readers have described as “Tarantinoesque”. For starters the perps are a taxi driver on meth and an evil rooster, and the crack force that is out to find them is endowed with supernatural powers. That sounds Pinoy all right, but how well does the author, Alexander Yates, know the Philippines? Has he even been here?
Oh yes, Alexander Yates has been here. He lived here, went to high school at IS Manila, and worked as a contractor in the US Embassy, where his job included reading stacks of Philippine newspapers dating back to the early years of the Marcos era. We spoke to Yates at the 32nd Manila International Book Fair, where he was one of the featured authors.
Read Moondogs Barking in the Tropical Sunshine in Emotional Weather Report, today in the Philippine Star.
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ATTENTION: The winners of the Weekly LitWit Challenge 7.0: What would you say to your 10-year-old self?
kratienza, Evan, noelz, Momelia, stellalehua and jeromeshuny: You can pick up your prizes beginning Tuesday, Sept 27, 2011 at the Customer Service Counter of National Bookstore at Power Plant Mall, Rockwell, Makati. Their number is (02)8974562. We’re leaving six books, one for each of you: pick the book you like best. Obviously the last one to get their book gets the title everyone else passed on. And we’re not going to tell you what the titles are. It’s a surprise!
The Weekly LitWit Challenge (and our interview with Alexander Yates) is brought to you by our friends at National Bookstore.
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