Ilustrado: A Novel

Ilustrado, Miguel Sjuco’s first award winning novel is gripping from the first chapter. It weaves the story of a young aspiring writing who, after the death of his mentor, Crispin Salvador, returns to the Philippines to learn more about his mentor and to find the answers to his death.

The death of Salvador sets the scene for the novel, however it is far for your typical murder mystery. Sjuco gives us empathy an understanding with the main character, named after himself by weaving in relationships and love, career aspirations and emotions as well as providing a larger picture of the political and religious state of the Philippines at the time the novel is set.

Ilustrado is a uniquely structured novel. Rather than containing a single narrative, it includes excerpts from Salvador’s writings that relate to the story as well, selections from blogs and newspaper articles, parts from Salvador’s Biography by Miguel Sjyco, and small anecdotal story’s, each weaving to form both annexes to the storyline, and something else that could perhaps be described as a mood or sense.

Uniquely crafted, Ilustrado is not your average hand holding narrative. “Ilustrado” is a term used to describe the well-to-do intelligentsia of the Philippines with the double meaning in Spanish and Filipino of “enlightened one”. The multifaceted structure also employs two forms of first person narrative from the perspective of the author: one typical of most books detailing the scenes and dialogue the other allowing a more personal connection with Miguel, as the reader is given an insight into her more personal inner monologue and his intention to uncover the mystery of Crispin’s life, works and death.

Excerpt from Ilustrado:
If our greatest fear is to sink away alone and unremembered, the brutality that time will inflict upon each of us will always run stronger than any river’s murky waves. This book therefore shoulders the weighty onus of relocating a man’s lost life and explores the possible temptations that death will always be present. The facts, shattered, are gathered, for your deliberation, like a broken mirror whose final piece has been forced into place. – Miguel Syjuco, en route to Manila, December 1, 2002

The intersection of various forms of writing and excerpts, as well as the two different perspectives of the main character, allow the reader to draw parallels between the main characters life, the subjects of his mentors writings, the political climate and the anecdotal character the author includes. You become familiar with the character, become friends with him and his motivations become the readers. Ilustrado makes you want to find out his answers as much as he does.

Written during Sjyco’s PhD candidature at the University of Adelaide, Ilustrado has an air of considered intelligence. It is much more that just a well written novel and invites the reader to learn more, not just about the themes of politics, relationships, the Philippines or Salvador Crispins writings but about people and life itself. It is a novel not just for the general reader but also for the inquiring mind.

This sophisticated novel is one that lends itself to multiple reads and is truly is an exceptionally well written book, and it is clear why it is an award winning novel.

Ilustrado is Miguel Syjuco’s first novel published in 2010 by Random House. It has won the 2008 Man Asia Literary Prize and the Palanca Grand Prize.

Ilustrado

ISBN-13: 978-0374174781