ERWIN E. CASTILLO
The Firewalkers
The Firewalkers
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Format: Paperback
Dimensions: 188 pages, 130mm x 180mm x 14mm, 200g
ISBN: 978-621-96757-8-9
Preface by Erwin E. Castillo
Introduction by Erwin T. Romulo
THE RETURN OF A 1992 CLASSIC
Set in 1913, The Firewalkers follows police sergeant Gabriel Diego in the hard-bitten mountain town of Lakambaga, Cavite. Silver-spurred Americans and their new rule of law bristle against the fading glory of Gabriel Diego’s blood uncles, old generals spurned by Emilio Aguinaldo during the Philippine-American War. Meanwhile, a monster leaves behind mangled corpses of children as the cowboy Apache Kid searches the town for the remote memories of something else more magical.
Following this startling work of historical fiction made of magic and woodsmoke, Erwin E. Castillo finishes with “The Watch of La Diane,” a seductive companion story that follows two young lovers traveling across 1970s America. In a new preface for this edition, Castillo writes, “events of our interesting times, public as well as precious, were grist for these intertwined narratives that hoped to confront the present with amuletic relics of an invented past.”
Praise for The Firewalkers
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“This is poem to make history spring alive and sing.”
—Nick Joaquin -
“The only way to read this book is with open pores and alert senses and quiet, very quiet breathing.”
—Francisco Arcellana -
“With The Firewalkers, Erwin E. Castillo introduces a carnival of characters whose mission is to approach the reader, rob them of their expectations, and leave them dazzled by a lyrical meditation on history, heroism, and memory. For those familiar with this novel in its first iteration decades ago, it makes for an energizing return to a fabulous, fabulist moment in Philippine literature in English.”
—Angelo R. Lacuesta -
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And Gabriel Diego fell into the woods, and the woods reached out to catch him falling, and he plunged deeper into the opening, engulfing maw, crying out the name of the woman he loved, the woods offering him a rootward path into the depths of it, into its secrets, through rain and sun and a new day.
Erwin E. Castillo
Born 1944, Castillo is the author of the novels The Firewalkers and Cape Engaño, and a fictive memory of boyhood called The Cycling Chronicles. He has won the Philippines Free Press, Asia-Philippines Leader, Philippines Graphic, Tagayan, and Palanca prizes. He also won the Awit Award for popular music composition. He is also a painter and a student of martial arts.
He was born in Singalong, Manila and grew up in Mendez-Nuñez, Cavite, and Project 4, Quezon City. He studied at the University of the Philippines, where he was later Writer-In-Residence. Castillo attended both the international and the university writing programs of the University of Iowa in Iowa City on scholarships. He wrote weekly columns for Panorama and Inquirer Magazine. He made his living in advertising and marketing communications, and still consults for business and political concerns.
He is married to Ma. Lourdes A. Claravall. They live in Alabang, Muntinlupa, and in Calatagan, Batangas.