When the Hibiscus Falls
Seventeen stories traverse borderlines, mythic and real, in the lives of Filipino and Filipino American women and their ancestors.
Moving from small Philippine villages of the past to the hurricane-beaten coast of near-future Florida, When the Hibiscus Falls examines the triumphs and sorrows that connect generations of women. Daughters, sisters, mothers, aunties, cousins, and lolas commune with their ancestors and their descendants, mourning what is lost when an older generation dies, celebrating what is gained when we safeguard their legacy for those who come after us. Featuring figures familiar from M. Evelina Galang's other acclaimed and richly imagined novels and stories, When the Hibiscus Falls dwells within the complexity of family, community, and Filipino American identity. Each story is an offering, a bloom that unfurls its petals and holds space in the sun.
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M. Evelina Galang is the author of a previous story collection, Her Wild American Self (1996), two novels, One Tribe (2006) and Angel De La Luna and the Fifth Glorious Mystery (2013), and the nonfiction book Lola's House: Filipino Women Living with War (2017). She edited the anthology Screaming Monkeys: Critiques of Asian American Images (2003). Galang directed the Creative Writing Program at the University of Miami from 2009-2019 and served as VONA Board President from 2018-2023. She lives in Miami.
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"Galang's masterly latest takes on xenophobia, racism, and other ills via stories of strong Filipino women. . . . What makes these stories so powerful and poignant are the inner lives of the characters, a complex blend of nostalgia, desire for assimilation, and defiance. This is a winner." -Publishers Weekly, starred review
"Galang's stories are of the Filipino American diaspora and generations of women who experience freedoms, grief, and community in a new land." --Oprah Daily
"Centering the lives of Filipino American women in seventeen stories, Galanga explores the complexities of ancestry, identity, and community, resulting in a collection that honors the deep connections that exist between descendants and ancestors." --Lupita Aquino, TODAY
"Galang's short stories brim with family members--lolas and lolos, ates and kuyas, people whose care can be suffocating or revelatory as each generation confronts what Filipino American identity means to them. . . . A portrait of how complicated it is to face the history you inherit." --Kirkus
"This radiant, fearless collection has it all: laughter and heartache, family drama, and history sung in the voices too often missing from the official record. M. Evelina Galang dances from ancestral myth to imaginary futures with a sure-footed grace, and her luminous characters--whether in Manila or Miami, the Midwest or beyond--urge us all to rediscover where we come from and what matters in the end." --Mia Alvar
"The descriptions in M. Evelina Galang's When the Hibiscus Falls never fail. Whether rendering the slightest touch between hands or the raw energy of a hurricane, Galang's language is in high form. I do not speak Tagalog, but the rhythm of the language is so present here that I believe now and again while reading that I do. These are wonderful stories of families and place and politics." --Percival Everett
"Long esteemed as a writers' writer, Evelina Galang recognizes the unity between this world and the next, grounding her vision in the intimate language of Filipino family and community. Her radical social and aesthetic commitments are reflected in the authority of her characters' perspectives, centering a blended reality: here/there, home/history, dreams of connection and of liberation." --Sarah Schulman
"M. Evelina Galang's stories are pioneering, lyrical, and full of life. She is interested in the diaphanous curtains among past, present, and future, and narrates with great vocal daring. This is a wonderful and important collection." --Lorrie Moore
"A collection of rare and fierce beauty examining generational and contemporary diasporic life. The characters embody history, myth, and homeland--lost and imagined--and will break your heart." --Marie Myung-Ok Lee
"Beautiful and often heartbreaking, the stories [in When the Hibiscus Falls] take us on the gentle and rhythmic wind of Galang's language into villages and cities in the Philippines, into forests and urban spaces, into cities like Chicago and Miami, and suburban communities we only think we know. We pass through different times, the eighties, the nineties, the COVID-19 quarantine, and we
