JOEL B. MANUEL, Translated Works

 THREE MEN AND A COVENANT Translated From Juan S.P. Hidalgo’s “Tallo a Lallaki Ken Maysa a Kari” Translated by Joel B. Manuel                   THAT NIGHT, they gathered around a small bonfire which the kept ablaze by feeding it with firewood. The chilly breath of the thick forest surrounding them is drilling into the sinews of Lakay Anib Sanchez. The strong odor of   withered leaves and trees and the earth trying to outsmell the burnt aroma which is leaping from the base of the flame and the surroundings crowned by the charcoal mountains that reach up to the starry heaven is like a giant heart pulsating. This is the same earth, like the beginning, the thought crackled in his forehead. The earth to be inherited by the end generations. He thought of their minuteness in this part of this earth and he felt his great antiquity beneath the roof of the ancient sky.      ...

  BINUGBOG 1 Original Ilokano Short Story by Joel B. Manuel Translated by the Author                                       “WE start processing the canes tomorrow, dear wife,” Iliong said when they are about to retire after they are done with their chores that early evening. They have piled the sugar cane before the presser. They have lubricated the gears of the sugar cane press. They have readied the pails for carrying the sugar cane juice. Bunggol, their carabao, is chewing its cud comnfortably on its bed under the molave tree near the sugar cane press.                 “Shall we do the binugbog?” Iliong asked.                 “That’s what we have done b...

  Embers By Joel B. Manuel Translated by Mark Louie Tabunan   TATA ZANDRO was awakened at 12:30 am. Midnight. Kidem 1 . It was pitch dark. The electricity must have gone out, he thought. But first, he felt that his bed was hard. Why is this so. I am not in our room, he mused? Tata Zandro felt the hard bed with his hands. Mat? And the one covered with a mat?   A bed made of bamboo! Tata Zandro was startled. He couldn’t remember sleeping in another house. He was in his own house. In his well-lit modern house. But why not in their soft bed? Tata Zandro’s feet reached for his sandals. But he was shocked when his foot caught a bamboo floor. What happened to the carpeted floor of their room? "Sika? 1 Sika?" he shook his wife Nana Carmen's shoulder. "Wake up, will you! Sika!" "I’m sleeping soundly and you wake me up!" Nana Carmen squinted and tried to rise up. But she was shocked when she slammed onto the bamboo bed. "Turn on the ...