Querida, mistress, kabit, kalaguyo, Number 2, other woman, concubine, kulasisi… we call her many names and we depict her in dozens of blockbuster movies , because she is the woman we all love to hate.
This feared and admired persona is the subject of a new anthology entitled Querida. Edited by Caroline S. Hau, Katrina Tuvera and Isabelita O. Reyes, the stories in this collection make a prism that radiates the many aspects and qualities of ‘the other woman’ .
“Querida is defined by what she does, and with whom. Her name in Spanish means “beloved,” and tells us something about the passion she kindles, the affection she commands.” thus say the editors in the preface. “ Depending on how tightly or loosely braided these issues are, a querida may be considered and treated as a partner, a playmate, or a prostitute.”
The anthology is composed of forty-two stories spanning one hundred and twenty-five years of literary portrayals of “the mistress”; from Jose Rizal’s Doña Consolacion in Noli Me Tangere to Angela Manalang Gloria’s nameless “other woman”, and Ricardo Lee, Racquel Villavicencio and Ishmael Bernal’s Marilou in Relasyon. Querida offers not only a feast of prose, poetry and drama from the Philippines’ most accomplished and distinguished authors as well as talented emerging writers such as Marivi Soliven Blanco and Katrina Tuvera, but also insights into what Lina Espina-Moore calls the beloved’s “illicit, illegal lives.”
Querida is available at the Fiction Section of National Book Store, Powerbooks and Bestsellers+++
-Aia Austria
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