Magandang gabi po!
Twenty two years. dalawampu't dalawang taon!
That’s how long since I was last here in Manila. And now I’m here with my daughter Emilie and with all of you.
Parang bumalik ang panahon.
It’s a kind of coming home for me. Because I’m here with all of you, celebrating my father’s work. My father’s words, his stories.
So much of Papa’s literary legacy already belongs to Philippine literature and history. But what moves me most about this publication is the idea that a new generation of readers is now encountering his stories for the first time—young readers, young writers, students, and book lovers discovering my father and all his words, his stories, the narratives that he dreamed about and made real— scribbled down on folded sheets of 8 1/2 by 11 paper, then typed out on a battered old typewriter.
Growing up inside that sound, I didn’t always understand what he was building. I just knew something alive was happening in that room.
That’s the way literature is, I think. It happens in rooms we don’t fully enter until later. And then one day, we walk right in and there it is—a story, just waiting there for us.
Literature is a kind of coming home.
I want to extend my deepest and most personal thanks to Mara Coson and her amazing staff at Exploding Galaxies. She has not only poured her heart into bringing Canticles for Dark Lovers back into the world with such care, artistry, and intention—she has taken care of this family, and of me and Emilie, during these days in Manila. Her devotion to Philippine literature and to the voices that deserve to keep reaching new readers is extraordinary. And the fact that Exploding Galaxies first gave readers the Philippine edition of But for the Lovers, and now introduces them to Papa’s short fiction through this collection, means everything to us.
Thank you also to WHYNoT for creating a space today where literature, memory, and community can come together so beautifully.
Now I want to speak of my Mama, Blanca Nolledo—who could not be with us today, because the journey is no longer easy for her at her age. She turns ninety this August. Ninety years of a life lived with extraordinary grace, extraordinary faith, and a love for this family that has never once wavered.
She was, and remains, the rock of all of us.
Those of you who have read Papa’s stories know that family—its bonds, its tensions, its deep and complicated devotions—runs through his work like a current. In Rice Wine and so many others, the dynamics between people who belong to each other, who hurt and sustain each other, who love without condition or measure—that was his great subject. And it was not invented. It was lived. Because what Papa wrote about, he came home to every day.
Theirs was a love story of unconditional proportions. And even now, long after his passing, Mama tends to his memory with the same quiet steadiness she brought to everything—to him, to us, to this family. Her devotion did not end with his life. It never will.
She wrote the introduction to this collection. And I want this room to know what that meant: she worked on it for days, fastidiously, with all of herself—choosing every word with the same care she gave to everything she ever did for this family. Reading her words moved me deeply. Because in that introduction, you feel not only the literary companion who understood his work—you feel the woman who loved him, completely and without reservation, across an entire lifetime.
This book carries her voice too. It always will.
And then there are my siblings.
Lia Natasha Nolledo has been here all these years—in Manila, close to the places Papa loved, holding our family’s connection to this city while the rest of us built lives far away. She never left. And in staying, she has kept something alive for all of us that we could only return to.
And my brothers—Ruel Nolledo and Orlando Nolledo—who are with me in spirit today, as they always are. Because that is what this family is. Despite the distance, despite the years, despite a world that has grown so fractured and polarized around us—we have remained close. That bond was not accidental. It was given to us. By Mama. By Papa. By the way they loved each other and loved us. The family unit they built remains intact—and I think that is, quietly, their most extraordinary achievement.
Today, I want this room to see all of us: Lia, Ruel, Orlie, and me—as the Nolledos we have always been, and as the keepers of everything this family holds dear.
Ang daming alaala.
There are so many others I carry into this room—Tito Danny Dalena, whom I was grateful to visit this week; and Tita Fe and Tito Recah Trinidad, Marra Lanot, Pete Lacaba, and all those who gathered with us in 2004 when I returned solo for the launch of Cadena de Amor and Other Stories. Some are here today. Others wished they could be. Time has moved forward for all of us—but the love has not diminished.
Returning here has meant revisiting not only Papa’s work, but the life that surrounded it—the friendships, the laughter, the conversations, the community. And always, underneath it all, the sound of that typewriter, still going, somewhere.
Papa lives on—
in story,
in memory,
in us.
Maraming Salamat po!
BOOK LAUNCH PHOTOS
(click on photos to enlarge)
Excerpts from various magazine articles and short stories written by Wilfrido D. Nolledo
The Exploding Galaxies Team courtesy of Chey Asdillo of EG
Photo courtesy of The Varsitarian
Melissa “Mimi” Nolledo – photo courtesy of The Varsitarian (Chloe Elysse B. Ibanez)
L to R: Theater stars husband and wife Paolo Fabregas and Miren Alvarez-Fabregas (readers) with Melissa “Mimi” Nolledo, Je de Asas and Emilie Christoffels
L to R:Mara Coson, Melissa “Mimi” Nolledo, Writer/Poet Alfred “Krip” Yuson, sculptress Julie Lluch and writer Celina Cristobal
Visual Artist and filmmaker Kiri Dalena and son, with Melissa “Mimi” Nolledo
L to R: Emilie Christoffels, artist Rodolfo Samonte, sculptor Julie Lluch, Natasha “Lia” Nolledo, Melissa “Mimi” Nolledo, National Artist for Literature Virgilio Almario, Ani Almario and Mara Coson
Mara Coson of Exploding Galaxies
Melissa “Mimi” Nolledo and writer Juan Y. Arcellana
WHYNoT created a beautiful installation recreating letters written by Wilfrido D. Nolledo to his wife Blanca Nolledo
L to R: Mika Soria, Pilar Fernandez, Joey Alvero, Kristian Henson, Sam Marcelo, Mark Amoguis, Lia Nolledo, Emilie Kristoffels, Mimi, Nicole CuUnjieng Aboitiz, Blaze Gipiga, Athena Ramos, and Mara Coson
L to R: Melissa “Mimi” Nolledo with writer/novelist Danton Remoto and Deacon Ren Aguila
Melissa “Mimi” Nolledo with WHYNoT’s founder Baby Imperial
L to R: Visual Artist and filmmaker, Kiri Dalena and son, Mikhaela Cao, Eileen Matute, Carrie Manglinong, Ember Cruz, Nina L B. Tomen, Eusebio “Ted” Jacinto, Julie Lluch, Mimi Nolledo and Emilie Christoffels
L to R: Natasha “Lia” Nolledo, Judith Albano, Emilie Christoffels, Melissa “Mimi” Nolledo, Girlie Escaner, and Je de Asas
L to R: Novelist/writer Danton Remoto, Melissa “Mimi” Nolledo, National Artist for Literature Virgilio Almario, sculptress Julie Lluch, Je de Asas, Girlie Escaner, Judith Albano and Joseph Santos-Lyons
*****
Melissa “Mimi” Nolledo is a Filipino American multidisciplinary visual artist and photographer based in Eugene, Oregon. A first-generation immigrant shaped by a lineage of writers and early years as a journalist in Manila, her work explores identity, memory, migration, resilience, and the evolving interior landscapes of women. Through mixed media, photography, and digital processes, she creates layered visual narratives that examine how we carry history while continuing to become.
Nolledo is the founder of the award-winning Our Stories: Immigrants of America, a long-term storytelling project amplifying immigrant voices through portraiture and narrative. She is a contributing artist to the Illumination Project with the Springfield History Museum and serves on its Advisory Board representing the AAPI affinity group and supporting its mission to uplift underrepresented community stories.
An active community leader for decades, Nolledo has served within Asian American and Filipino American organizations across Oregon. A mother of three and proud grandmother, she creates work shaped by both lineage and lived experience — grounded in the belief that art is witness, resilience, and flight.
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