Dusk: A Novel (Modern Library Paperbacks) (41 page)

I am grateful to the Rockefeller Foundation for its fellowship, which allowed me to write this novel in Bellagio, Italy.

I’d also like to thank R. P. Garcia Publishing Company, Quezon City, Philippines, where the first chapter of this book originally appeared as “The Cripples” in the collection
The God Stealer
.

With the publication of
Three Filipino Women
by Random House in 1992, the work of F. S
IONIL
J
OSÉ
began appearing in the United States. He is one of the major literary voices of Asia and the Pacific, but (after encouragement by Malcolm Cowley and others) his novels and stories are only now gradually being published in the country that figures in much of his work as both a shadow and yet a very real presence.

José (widely known as “Frankie”) runs a leading bookshop in Manila, was the founding president of the Philippines PEN Center, publishes the journal
Solidarity
, and is best known for the five novels comprising the highly regarded Rosales Saga (
Dusk
[
Po-on
];
Tree
;
My Brother
,
My Executioner
;
The Pretenders
; and
Mass
). He is widely published around the world and travels steadily.