Jaehwa Bernardo

Filipino author and literary scholar Genevieve Asenjo

Article (news)

English translation brings Filipino novel 'Lumbay ng Dila' to new readers

Mye Mulingtapang

ABS-CBN News

<div><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1782287589823GenAsenjo2025.JPG" style="width:633px" class="fr-fic fr-dib" width="633" alt="Filipino author and literary scholar Genevieve Asenjo"/>Filipino author and literary scholar Genevieve Asenjo</div>As Philippine literature slowly gains international visibility, a pressing question emerges: How do stories rooted in specific places travel beyond the archipelago without losing their soul?For Filipino author and literary scholar Genevieve Asenjo, that journey is taking shape through &quot;Lumbay ng Dila&quot; (&quot;The Melancholy of the Tongue&quot;), her award-winning novel originally written in Filipino and now being translated into English through a Dutch publication initiative.The project is more than an expansion of readership. It is an opportunity to bring regional Filipino histories into global conversations without stripping away their complexity.At a time when international audiences are increasingly curious about Philippine literature, Asenjo&#x27;s work offers an important reminder: there is no singular Filipino story waiting to be discovered. There are many Philippines, each shaped by its own language, geography, and memory.&quot;Lumbay ng Dila&quot; follows Sadyah Zapanta Lopez, a 28-year-old teacher in Manila whose life is disrupted by a headline from home. Her grandfather, former assemblyman Marcelo Nones Lopez, has been acquitted after a 21-year trial linked to the 1984 Guinsang-an Bridge Massacre.The verdict revives a question that has haunted her since childhood: What happened to her mother, Teresa Zapanta Lopez, known in the movement as Kumander Rafflesia, who disappeared after the violence and the years of fear that followed?Drawn back to Barasanan in Dao, Antique, Sadyah attempts to rebuild a life among kin and memory while opening Balay Sugidanun, a home for stories. Her journey takes her between the province and the city, and eventually to Bangkok with her lover, Priya Iyer. Along the way, she assembles documents, testimonies, and fragments of a fractured past.<div><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1782287615664Instagram (77).jpeg" style="width:633px" class="fr-fic fr-dib"/></div>What begins as a daughter&#x27;s search for answers gradually expands into a meditation on inheritance and collective memory. The novel asks what happens when communities carry unresolved histories across generations and whether remembering can become a form of repair.<div>TRANSLATION</div>For Philippine literature, translation has never been a purely technical exercise.The English translation of &quot;Lumbay ng Dila&quot; allows readers outside the Philippines to encounter a story deeply embedded in Antique&#x27;s cultural landscape while preserving the textures that make it distinct.Yet every act of translation carries difficult questions. How do you preserve emotional weight when languages hold different histories? How do you translate political memory without reducing its complexity? How do you retain rhythms and voices that belong to a particular place?For Asenjo, these tensions are part of the process.&quot;My first thought was that the novel had found another tongue and reader. It is a given that something is lost in translation; at the same time, something is also gained. I was less worried about individual words than about rhythm, voice, context, and the layered coexistence of Kinaray-a, Hiligaynon, Filipino, and English within the novel. Yet these are the very things that make translation exciting,&quot; she said.Her response reframes translation not as a compromise but as a creative encounter. The challenge is not to reproduce every word exactly but to preserve a way of seeing the world.<div>REGIONAL VOICES</div>Throughout her career, Asenjo has advocated for the visibility of regional voices within Philippine literature.Although &quot;Lumbay ng Dila&quot; was written in Filipino, its worldview is deeply informed by Western Visayas and Kinaray-a culture. Rather than presenting a singular version of the nation, the novel embraces the many identities that coexist within the archipelago.Its themes of loss, displacement, inheritance, and longing resonate far beyond Antique while remaining faithful to the communities that inspired them.The task of translation, therefore, is not to make the novel less local. It is to allow its locality to travel.The Dutch publication initiative signals a broader shift in how Philippine literature circulates internationally.For decades, only a limited number of Filipino literary voices reached foreign audiences. Today, works grounded in regional histories are beginning to find new pathways abroad.That shift matters because it changes how the Philippines is understood internationally.The country cannot be represented by a single language, a single historical narrative, or a single literary tradition. Works like &quot;Lumbay ng Dila&quot; reveal a Philippines that is multilingual, layered, and constantly negotiating its own past.<div><a href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/lifestyle/people-culture-events/2026/6/17/beyond-translation-why-filipino-stories-are-finding-global-readers-1504">Beyond translation: Why Filipino stories are finding global readers </a></div>Still, Asenjo is careful not to place impossible expectations on literature.&quot;I do not expect readers to finish the novel understanding the Philippines. I am not sure any single book can do that. But I hope they meet Sadyah and, in following her search through family histories, political histories, and matters of the heart, recognize a familiar human predicament: none of us begins our story at the beginning, yet all of us must somehow continue.&quot;<div>JOURNEY TO BARCELONA</div>The journey of The &quot;Melancholy of the Tongue&quot; will soon move beyond the page and into a shared literary space in Barcelona.On June 27, readers will gather at The Philippine Club in Plaza Reial for an intimate presentation of the novel and a rare opportunity to meet Asenjo in person.Through readings and a question-and-answer session, Asenjo will discuss the creative process behind the novel.For those unable to attend in person, a Facebook livestream will make the event accessible to audiences around the world.

As Philippine literature slowly gains international visibility, a pressing question emerges: How do stories rooted in specific places travel beyond the archipelago without losing their soul?

As Philippine literature slowly gains international visibility, a pressing question emerges: How do stories rooted in specific places travel beyond the archipelago without losing their soul?