Inside the book launch of Wilfrido Nolledo’s ‘Canticle for Dark Lovers’

The emotional core of the evening was undoubtedly the presence of Nolledo’s daughter, Melissa “Mimi” Nolledo, who represented the estate. Her attendance was profoundly symbolic, as it marked her first time setting foot in the Philippines 22 years after the death of her father in 2004.

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Addressing the audience—which included the Nolledo and Datuin families, the Dalena family, National Artist for Literature Virgilio S Almario, sculptor Julie Lluch and artist Rodolfo Samonte—Mimi shared moving reflections on her father’s legacy and her own upbringing.

“So much of Papa’s literary legacy already belongs to Philippine literature and history,” Mimi says. “But what moves me most about this publication is the idea that a new generation of readers is now encountering his stories for the first time—young readers, young writers, students and book lovers discovering my father and all his words, his stories, the narratives that he dreamed about and made real—scribbled down on folded sheets of 8 1/2 by 11 paper, then typed out on a battered old typewriter.”

“When I think of Papa writing, what I hear first is the typewriter,” recalls Mimi. “Growing up, we would all hear it throughout our house on Champagne Street in Marikina—that staccato rhythm, trippingly like music, then moments when you could hear him as he quietly read passages aloud to himself. Like he was checking for the cadence, the poetry, the heft and feel of a certain word, a certain syllable. Growing up inside that sound, I didn’t always understand what he was building. I just knew something alive was happening in that room. That’s the way literature is, I think. It happens in rooms we don’t fully enter until later. And then one day, we walk right in and there it is—a story, just waiting there for us. Literature is a kind of coming home.”

Reflecting on the overarching themes of his newly compiled work, she noted that the intricate dynamics of familial love and tension were not merely narrative devices for her father but reflections of his lived reality.

“Those of you who have read Papa’s stories know that family—its bonds, its tensions, its deep and complicated devotions—runs through his work like a current,” she says. “In Rice Wine and so many others, the dynamics between people who belong to each other, who hurt and sustain each other, who love without condition or measure—that was his great subject. And it was not invented. It was lived. Because what Papa wrote about, he came home to every day.”

The collection itself is a masterclass in narrative breadth, featuring some of his most awarded short stories like Rice Wine; Adios, Ossimandas; and Kayumanggi, Mon Amour, alongside previously uncollected writings such as Guernica and the Blue Star. These are stories of intense human experiences: a lover knifing another in defence and defiance, the price of a daughter’s filial love and a straitlaced salaryman overcharged for a recording of his son’s voice.

To speak on the indelible impact of Nolledo’s language, poet and novelist Alfred “Krip” Yuson—who once worked with Wilfrido in the Philippines Free Press—delivered a surprise message during the event. He recounted his early days meeting Nick Joaquin and Nolledo, praising the sheer force of Nolledo’s vocabulary and syntax.

“The appreciation stays for being treated to the kind of prose that only Ding Nolledo could produce,“ Yuson says. “And it wasn’t only prose for fiction. I loved to read even his movie reviews, his film reviews in the Philippines Free Press. Only he could produce such vocabularies, such syntax. I’m happy that Exploding Galaxies is producing this book.”

Yuson reflected on the longevity of Nolledo’s influence, musing on how modern readers might receive his unapologetically lush style.

“It has been 60, 70 years since I say, the start of the heyday of Ding Nolledo. I still admire him. I’m still impressed, and I still appreciate the mentorship that he somehow provided by his kind of language writing,” he says. “I wonder if the new generations will also abide by it. I’m sure that if this happened three or four decades ago, during the great bilingualism divide, especially between English and Filipino in UP and elsewhere... So-called ‘language writers’ were really looked down upon. There was always a danger with language writing because if you go over the edge, it becomes ‘purple prose.’ [...] We’ll see if the new generation will think that this is ‘purple prose.’ I don’t think so. I still remain impressed and intoxicated by the prose of Ding Nolledo.”

The event also heavily featured the enduring bond between Wilfrido and his wife, Blanca. A video message from the family in Los Angeles included appearances by Blanca and their son, Orlando. Blanca’s presence is deeply felt within the physical book itself, as she penned a new foreword shedding light on her late husband’s complex, sometimes alienated, but brilliant life.

Mimi spoke beautifully of her mother’s contribution to the project, noting the palpable devotion evident in the foreword.

“Reading her words moved me deeply. Because in that introduction, you feel not only the literary companion who understood his work—you feel the woman who loved him, completely and without reservation, across an entire lifetime. This book carries her voice, too. It always will,“ Mimi remarks.

As the launch concluded, there was a shared sentiment that the past truly does devour the present in Nolledo’s newly assembled pages. But perhaps more accurately, as Mimi beautifully summarised, the past lives on.

“Returning here has meant revisiting not only Papa’s work, but the life that surrounded it—the friendships, the laughter, the conversations, the community. And always, underneath it all, the sound of that typewriter, still going, somewhere. Papa lives on—in story, in memory, in us.”

Canticles for Dark Lovers has been made available since May 11 on the Exploding Galaxies website. As of today, May 15, readers can also purchase copies in bookstores around the Philippines, as well as on Shopee and Lazada.

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