Francisco Jose - Dusk

Tropical orange, often as big as a soccer ball.

principalia:

The provincial elite, usually landlords (Sp.).

rayadillo:

Seersucker design of the revolutionary army; tiny blue lines on white.

remontados:

Spanish name for Filipinos who fled from Spanish tyranny.

sagat:

Hardwood tree. Sagat is the hardest Philippine wood, used for house posts or railroad ties.

sala:

The living room in large houses (Sp.).

salapi:

Fifty centavos; also denotes money, lucre.

saluyot:

A wild-growing shrub with leaves that are the best-known Ilokano vegetable, slippery like okra.

sineguelas:

Tree bearing a green fruit no larger than a Ping-Pong ball.

sipi:

A small room attached to the farmer’s house, where pillows and the rice bin are stored.

sitio:

A group of houses smaller than a village.

siyam-siyam

(literally “nine-nine”): Nine days of constant rain.

sopa boba

(literally “fool’s soup”): Small consolation (Sp.)

suman:

Gelatinous rice cooked in coconut milk, usually wrapped in banana leaves or young palm leaves.

Tatang:

Ilokano term for father or affectionate address for an older male.

tinto dulce:

Sweet wine (Sp.).

tulisanes:

Thieves.

I am grateful to the Rockefeller Foundation for its fellowship, which allowed me to write this novel in Bellagio, Italy.

I’d also like to thank R. P. Garcia Publishing Company, Quezon City, Philippines, where the first chapter of this book originally appeared as “The Cripples” in the collection The God Stealer .

With the publication of Three Filipino Women by Random House in 1992, the work of F. SIONIL JOSÉ began appearing in the United States. He is one of the major literary voices of Asia and the Pacific, but (after encouragement by Malcolm Cowley and others) his novels and stories are only now gradually being published in the country that figures in much of his work as both a shadow and yet a very real presence.

José (widely known as “Frankie”) runs a leading bookshop in Manila, was the founding president of the Philippines PEN Center, publishes the journal Solidarity , and is best known for the five novels comprising the highly regarded Rosales Saga ( Dusk [ Po-on ]; Tree; My Brother, My Executioner; The Pretenders ; and Mass ). He is widely published around the world and travels steadily.