We've got exciting updates about Lio Mangubat's Silk, Silver, Spices, Slaves: Lost Tales from the Philippine Colonial Period, 1565-1946!
First up, we had an excellent turnout for the Singapore launch of Silk, Silver, Spices, Slaves at Book Bar on 13 July! Thank you to everyone who spent an hour with us talking about the moral importance of history, and why it is important for history narratives to be told and retold in different formats (podcasts! Essays!) for different generations.
We were heartened to meet readers in Singapore who asked very thoughtful questions about storytelling, the safeguards against sensationalism that Lio has when writing the scripts for his episodes for his wonderful history podcast The Colonial Dept (Season 6 is now out), how Lio keeps local and international audiences in mind when writing, and how history is consumed in the Philippines.
We've also had wonderful reviews of Silk, Silver, Spices, Slaves — you can read Ex Libris Philippines' review of the book, where the reviewer praised the book for being "the equivalent of a tasty snack, following in the footsteps of popular historians like Ambeth Ocampo, Nick Joaquin, and Resil Mojares, but written with a younger and more diverse audience in mind. Readers have thirteen tiny bites as a treat, whetting our appetites for more".
Lio was also featured in not one, but two podcasts — 1) What's AP? Araling Panlipunan Rebooted with Ceej eej Tantengco-Malolos and 2) Asian Review of Books with Nicholas Gordon, which is also posted on the New Books in Southeast Asian Studies podcast. Appearing on the New Books Network's Southeast Asian outpost is a dream come true for us as it's been #goals for our authors and books to appear this podcast, and we're so grateful it's happened so soon.
🇵🇭 Last but never least, we will be launching the book at Everything's Fine in Manila on 31 August! Follow Faction Press's Instagram page for more details. 🇵🇭
Stay tuned to more news and new book announcements for the remainder of 2024! As always, please reach out to us at hello@faction.press if you have any questions or would just like to say hello!
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