The Halo-Halo Review is pleased to interview authors in the aftermath of their books’ releases. This issue's featured authors include Danton Remoto.
What is your most recent book?
My most recent book is The Heart of Summer: Stories and Tales (Penguin SEA, 2023). It is a compilation of selected stories written in the last 30 years, written in the realist and fabulist modes.
Who published and when was it released?
US and UK publication date is October 3, 2023. It was released in Asia last March 22, 2023.
What has been the response/what has surprised you most about the response?
The publishers and I were surprised by the number of pre-orders. It is also included in the catalogue of several American booksellers as part of the Autumn Book offerings.
Tell me something not obvious or known about the book.
There are several kinds of stories in the book. There are stories about rites of passage, love and loss, gay stories and a novella about Philippine history told from a blind woman's point of view (irony there). There are also ghost stories and tales about the supernatural, as well as children's stories and stories for a Young Adult readership. The mixed-bag quality of the book must be the reason for the strong pre-orders.
What are you working on now?
I am writing a novel set in New York during 9/11, from the point of view of a Filipino graduate student who is in love with a mixed-race American. It is a story of the diaspora and immigration, wrapped in seemingly harmless gay romance.
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Danton Remoto was educated at Ateneo de Manila University, University of Stirling (UK) and Rutgers University (USA). He has worked as Head of School and Professor of English at the University of Nottingham and as Head of Communications at the United Nations Development Programme office in Manila. At present, he is the producer and host of a daily radio show called “Pinoy Konek” at Radyo 5 and writes columns for The Manila Times, the Philippines’ oldest newspaper founded in 1898. He has attended the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and the MacDowell Arts Residency, and is writing his third novel while on a fellowship at Miami University in Ohio.
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