Finalist 31st National Book Awards
Cecilia Manguerra Brainard's Vigan and Other Stories collects twenty short stories, some of which were inspired by her visits to various places including Vigan in the Philippines, Cuzco in Peru, San Miguel Allende in Mexico, and India. The sad stories about mothers were inspired by her own mother whose complexity will always be a source of contemplation for Cecilia.
Professor Oscar V. Campomanes (Ateneo de Manila University) writes in his introduction: "Cecilia's style is even more spare or sparing, letting the words do the barest possible work of depicting action, description, or sequencing the events in the collected narratives...I'd call this style, which seems fairly unique to her (even when compared to that of old masters like Bulosan and Gonzalez), as scenographic, to borrow a term from cinema."
The author, Cecilia Manguerra Brainard, has written and edited over 20 books, including the novels, When the Rainbow Goddess Wept, Magdalena, and The Newspaper Widow. She has received a California Arts Council Fellowship, a Brody Arts Fund Award, an Outstanding Individual Award from her birth city of Cebu, Philippines. Her literary endeavors are considered significant contributions to Filipino, Philippine American, and Asian American literature.