Birds of Fire: A Filipino War Novel

"All the pages of this book, except for the last chapter, were written during the Japanese occupation. They were miraculously preserved because they were hidden inside glass jars that I buried in the garden of my house." - Jesús Balmori

Written in secrecy during the terrible final years of World War II (1942 - 1945), Birds of Fire, A Filipino War Novel is an intense testimony to the courage of the human spirit facing the cruelty of military occupation. Jesus Balmori (1886-1948), poet, novelist and journalist, was one of the most prominent figures in 20th century Hispanic-Filipino literature. Birds of Fire, his last and most important novel, narrates the rise and fall of the Robles family, prominent members of the Spanish-Filipino high society. Through the survival drama and dissolution of the family, Balmori chronicles the horrors of war, the heroic resistance of a people, and the tragedy of a society facing extinction. After years of hardship, and despite having lost all his possessions in the bombing and destruction of Manila, Balmori was able to complete the manuscript and cede it to the Philippine government for publication before his death. However, the work was never published, falling into oblivion and believed to be lost for more than 50 years. The recent rediscovery and publication of Birds of Fire represents a historic event for the memory of the Filipino people and their literary tradition. This is the first English translation.

Jesús Balmori (Manila, Philippines. 1886-1948) was one of the leading writers of the golden age of Philippine literature in Spanish. At age seventeen he published a groundbreaking book in Philippine poetry, Rimas Malayas (1904), in which he introduced the aesthetics of Modernismo for the first time in the Philippines. In 1926 he received the prestigious Zóbel Prize in the literary genre known as Balagtasan, a form of call-and-response debate conducted in verse. Balmori achieved his greatest recognition as a poet in 1940 with Mi Casa de Nipa, a collection of his best poems that won the National Literary Award sponsored by the U.S. Commonwealth Government. In his poetry, Balmori expressed his intention to create a Filipino aesthetic that could transcend Modernismo and help establish the identity of Spanish-Philippine literature. He wrote prolifically in many genres, including scathing articles and satirical poems under the pseudonym "Batikuling," criticizing the socio-political establishment and the ruling elite of the times. Balmori was also considered one of the most accomplished novelists of his time. His first two novels, Bancarrota de almas (Bankruptcy of Souls, 1911) and Se deshojó la flor (Withering Flowers, 1915), attempted to go beyond the romantic novel, developing a social realist narrative with the intention of unveiling Filipino national psychology. His third and last novel, Los pájaros de fuego (Birds of Fire, 1945), is a testimonial account of the chaos of war and the destruction of the archipelago during World War II. Written in secret during the years of the Japanese military occupation, it is today considered his most important work. Before his death in 1948, Balmori was able to complete the manuscript of his novel and cede it to the Philippine government for publication. However, Birds of Fire was never published and was thought to be lost for over half a century. Its recent rediscovery and publication represents a historic event for the memory of the Filipino people and their literary tradition. This is the first English translation.

Robert S. Rudder holds a doctorate degree in Spanish/ English history from the University of Minnesota (1962-69) with a specialization in Golden Age Spanish Literature. He began translating short stories while teaching Spanish at the University of Minnesota in the 1960s, and later continued his dedication to literary translation during his teaching years at UCLA and other universities in California. He has published twelve books, including a new translation of the picaresque classic novel Lazarillo de Tormes (1975), and English translations of such writers as Benito Pérez Galdós, Rosario Castellanos and Cristina Peri Rossi. He has received grants from the Spanish Ministry of Culture for the translation of Nazarín by Pérez Galdós (1997); and from the National Endowment for the Arts for Lo prohibido by Pérez Galdós (2004) and Tres y un sueño by Ana María Matute (2017).

Ignacio López-Calvo is Presidential Chair in the Humanities, Director of the Center for the Humanities, and Professor of Literature at the University of California, Merced. He is the author of more than one hundred articles and book chapters, as well as nine single-authored books and seventeen essay collections. He is the co-executive director of the academic journal Transmodernity: Journal of Peripheral Cultural Production of the Luso-Hispanic World, the Palgrave-Macmillan Book Series "Historical and Cultural Interconnections between Latin America and Asia," and the Anthem Press book series "Anthem Studies in Latin American Literature and Culture Series." His latest books are The Mexican Transpacific: Nikkei Writing, Visual Arts, Performance (forthcoming); Saudades of Japan and Brazil: Contested Modernities in Lusophone Nikkei Cultural Production (2019); Dragons in the Land of the Condor: Tusán Literature and Knowledge in Peru (2014), and The Affinity of the Eye: Writing Nikkei in Peru (2013).