The giddy romance of travel writing
Launched on Feb. 18 at the NBS Glorietta 1 branch was Alice M. Sun-Cua’s Kissing Through a Handkerchief and Other Travel Tales (UST Publishing House, 2017).
A practicing obstetrician-gynecologist, she is also a poet and translator besides being a devoted travel narrative writer. Apart from Charted Prophecies & Other Poems (DLSU Press, 2001), she’s seen frequent inclusion in poetry and translation anthologies. Previous essay collections were Riding Towards the Sunrise and Other Travel Tales (Anvil, 2000), which won the National Book Award for Creative Nonfiction, and Autumn in Madrid (UST Publishing House, 2013).
Her latest collection offers delailed journey narratives through seven countries: Libya, Morocco, Colombia, Germany, Great Britain, Portugal and Spain, with anywhere from four to eight place pieces for each country.
I was immediately drawn to the section on Colombia, having shared the experience of participation at the International Poetry Festival in Medellin, as have several other Filipino poets (Marjorie Evasco, Gémino H. Abad, Marra PL. Lanot, Mookie Katigbak-Lacuesta and Dinah Roma).
Alice’s account of her delightful sojourn with her husband Alex rekindled my own cache of recollections, particularly those involving the Gran Hotel and Plaza Botero. The latter is described thus:
“The plaza was a large open square showcasing the many bronze sculptures of the famous Medellin-born artist, Fernando Botero. Huge, voluptuous, but compact, each rounded figure did not seem to have an extra ounce of fat nor flesh on them. There were more than 20 sculptures dotting the plaza amid tall palm trees, each one simply titled: ‘Mujer’ (Woman), ‘Hombre’ (Man), ‘Le Esfinge’ (Sphinx), ‘Los amantes’ (Lovers), etc. We were like children let loose in a candy shop, as we only saw these sculptures in books and cards before, and now there was a plaza full of them.”
Beyond Medellin, Alice and Alex also spent time in Bogota and the small towns of Jerico and Zipaquira. Here the poet-writer as pilgrim, raconteur and culinary adventurer takes us along for the fufilling ride.
“I chose the Bandeja paisa (literally, the country’s or the land’s platter) and found that everyone seemed to have ordered the same, too. When it came out, it was indeed a ‘bandeja.’ The first thing that caught the eye was the big and long strip of freshly-fried pork liempo, curving around one side of the platter, the skin crispy and fragrant, and the whole piece slit from its distal ends that opened like a fan.
“‘This piece is called chicharon,’ Vicky volunteered. Chicharon? Now why does that name sound so familiar?”
Alice’s learning stint at Instituto Cervantes gave her an advantage, as well as inclusion in a Spanish-speaking group that went through Morocco, while friendship with Ambassador Al Vicente facilitated trips through Libya and Portugal. Journeys to Germany and Great Britain were in turn “cobbled together by Alex who consulted several travel books and websites.”
Points of interest affirm the couple’s literary leanings and historical research, as well as their spiritual devotion, so that their usual fare includes basilicas, cathedrals, convents, palaces, castles, fortresses, monuments, museums, and other Old World pitstops of grandeur — in such enchanting place names as Tripoli, Marrakesh, Weimar, Heidelberg, Lisbon, Oporto, Estoril, Valladolid, Malaga and Cordoba.
Alice satiates a reader’s virtual tours with her sensitive prose. Her book sees another launch on March 24 at the Solidaridad Bookshop in celebration of National Women’s Month and International Women’s Day, when Philippine PEN presents “Tres Marias: Booklaunch and Conversation with Authors” — featuring her with Mookie Katigbak-Lacuesta and Che Sarigumba with their respective new titles.
Johanna Michelle Lim’s What Distance Tells Us: Travel Essays About the Philippines, published by Bathalad, had its launch on February 23 at Qube Gallery in Cebu City.
This debut collection takes the young author, a fellow at the Silliman University National Writers Workshop a few years ago, through 12 local destinations, sub-sectioned as North (Sagada, Sablan in Benguet, Batanes), West (Islas Gigantes in Iloilo, Sabang in Palawan, Guimaras) South (Santa Cruz Island off Zamboanga, Lake Sebu in South Cotabato, Sitangkai in Tawi-tawi), and East (Biri Island in Northern Samar, Mambajao in Camiguin, General Luna in Siargao).
Been there done that with regards two-thirds of these exotic destinations, but I’m happy to be regaled vicariously with captivating personal reportage on the whole dozen. Michelle immerses herself totally in her explorations, her conversations with the locals filling in the entire picture, while her insights uncover fresh ground.
As Anthony L. Kintanar writes in the Introduction, “… she lets it all hang out in the writing, perhaps her real home, in this span of distance, to the extent that this book is also an autobigraphy, and soul finding.”
Indeed, the young voice is already quite wizened.
“Bodies of water teach us that everything can be coasted through. But mountains, mountains somehow impart that steady strides are needed for any act worth reaching. … There’s nothing like days of dirt roads, vertical drops, landslides, thick fog, and kilometers of going up and down a town with a thousand stairs to make you realize the wisdom in that.”
I understand that the book is down to its last 100 copies, at P500 per. Orders may be made at https://tinyurl.com/travelPH.
