Penguin Classics to publish Nick Joaquin stories for his birth centennial

Major publishing house Penguin will publish a collection of Nick Joaquin's stories to commemorate the Filipino author's 100th birth anniversary in 2017.

Titled "The Woman Who Had Two Navels and Tales of the Tropical Gothic," the book will come out on Penguin Classics in April and will include some of his most famous stories—including the novel in the title; at least one of the short stories in his anthology "Tropical Gothic";  and his play "A Portrait of the Artist as Filipino."

According to Penguin, it will be the first US publication of Joaquin's stories.

The collection will be published in paperback form and will also be available as an e-book. This edition will have a foreword by novelist Gina Apostol and an introduction by historian Vicente L. Rafael.

Nick Joaquin was born in Manila on May 4, 1917 and died on April 29, 2004. He is considered one of the country's finest writers. "His work meditates on the questions and challenges of the Filipino individual’s new freedom after centuries of colonialism, exploring folklore, centuries-old Catholic rites, the Spanish colonial past, magical realism, and baroque splendor and excess," said Penguin on its website. — BM, GMA News