Harare Review of Books

256 pages.

Expected publication date: June 13, 2023 (Coffee House Press)

Fiction anthology.

There’s a lightness to this book that I didn’t expect, given the cast of ancestors, ghosts, and aswang. My word cloud for this collection is: women, immigrant life, tropical flowers, food, Catholicism, typhoons and hurricanes, caring for and honouring the elderly, racism and colourism, the US, Spain, colonialism and empire. Galang has somehow managed the feat of weaving all of this together into a rich imaginary of myth, colour, and dreams.

When the Hibiscus Falls is set in the distant past, the present, and an imagined future. One of my favourite stories is an important exploration of anti-Asian violence during the Covid pandemic, the first time I’ve encountered this in fiction. Two other excellent stories on the theme of straddling two cultures, American and Philippine, are the delightfully haunted and haunting Foodie in the Philippines, about the dislocation of an American Filipina who thinks she’s gone home to explore the food scene, but who finds something very unexpected instead; and Hot Mommies, a beautiful story about two American sisters trying to find their way again after losing their parents.

Galang shows amazing range in this wonderful collection. This is not the first time I’ve read writing about Philippine life and culture, but When the Hibiscus Falls is particularly beautiful and memorable. Highly recommended.

Thank you very much to Edelweiss and to Coffee House Press for this DRC.

---

You can support independent bookshops, and my writing, by buying it on Bookshop here.