Dogeaters by Jessica Hagedorn

Dogeaters, a novel by author Jessica Hagedorn, was published in March 1990. Winner of an American Book Award and nominated for the National Book Award, it became one of the best-known published creative works by a Filipina American. The title refers to a derogatory stereotype about Filipinos, and the novel centers on the lives of several characters from different social classes in Manila in the 1950s. The novel’s surrealist style underscores the maddening contradictions of life in a country where false appearances and abuse of power in politics, mass media, celebrity pop culture, religion, and family relationships overshadow reality and intertwine the frenetic aftermath of centuries of colonization in the Philippines.