from an ask: "Hi Kharla! I was just wondering maybe you could help me. This pandemic was really an eye-opener that I suddenly became eager to know more about our country and to actually dig deep in its history rather than staying on the surface-level of things. However, I don't know how or where to start. Maybe you could give me some tips on what resources or books I can start with? Thank you! :)" / "here are some historical fiction novels that have helped me understand war and violence, our sense of postcoloniality, and what not. not all of these are filipino works, mainly because to understand one’s history is to understand the fiction and nonfiction histories of countries who have been colonized the same way, i tend to move towards work written by ‘minority writers’ that is, asian, latin american, and african-american."

• Patron Saints of Nothing, Randy Ribay
• Insurrecto, Gina Apostol
• The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini
• The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz
• The Space Between Us, Thrity Umrigar
• Partitions, Amit Majmudar

"One (local) place to start might be my bookshelf, from which I make a list of recent and contemporary female writers known for violent or cruel writing (there is a difference, I know). ...Does it comes as any surprise that most, if not all, of these writers are known for writing in relation to–and often explicit protest against–male violence, misogyny, or patriarchy?"

• Kathy Acker, Dorothy Allison, Octavia Butler, Angela Carter, Ivy Compton-Burnett, Virginie Despentes, Mary Gaitskill, Patricia Highsmith, Shirley Jackson, Elfriedge Jelinek, Sarah Kane, Natsuo Kirino, Heather Lewis, Joyce Mansour, Susannah Moore, Joyce Carol Oates, Flannery O'Connor, Sylvia Plath, Pauline Reage, Sapphire, Valerie Solanas, and Christina Stead.