Dear Friend,

Thank you very much for visiting. Come March 2013, this website/blog will turn 2 years old with almost 20,000 visitors. It is in dire need of renovation. I am hoping that the coming year will bring me more time to focus on literature and occasional blogging.

2012 was an interesting year. Towards the end of the year, I opened my fiction manuscript and finished editing it. I revisited the book when I traveled out of the country in October. Having a management job has put my literary works on life support. This year is the time to make another drastic change. Time to make very clear choices. I often tell my friends that your whole life should be based on what people are going to talk most about when you're gone. Sounds morbid. Yet I know, most people will talk about what I wrote, or didn't get a chance to write. And the thought of not being able to finish my literary works is indeed a very sad one.

From previous post: In this website, I have included a BLOG, so that I don't have to maintain too many sites. I have created a simple website that includes information about my books, and also, updates on the goings-on in my work and literary life. You, as a reader, will also have the opportunity to post your thoughts in several comment boxes. I would love to hear from you. This is a very personal website. As you know, I design and develop my own websites, so be rest assured that your being here is like being in my physical home. There are also a lot of pictures here, including ones of my close-knit family.

I thank you for your visit. I hope that you enjoy this website. Good luck on your own voyage in life. I hope, whatever it is that you carve in life, you do in the goodness of your life and of those around you. Peace.

A poem for your voyage: "Filipineza" in The Nation.

Bino

Found on the Web!

I just discovered that The Umbrella Country has a Facebook Page. Yay! Please Fan the book: The Umbrella Country Facebook Fan Page

Thanks for including The Umbrella Country on this list!
10 Pinoys in International Publishing Scene

Thanks to Libay Linsangan Cantor and Manila Times for this precious mention in the Sunday Times. Fil-Am Authors Writing

The Umbrella Country Debuts on Nook and Kindle in February 2011!

Got a Nook? Got a Kindle?

The Umbrella Country is now available on Nook and Kindle!

Kindle via Amazon.com

Nook via Barnes and Noble


Contact Information:

There are many pages on this website that can answer many questions about Bino A. Realuyo's work. Thank you for exploring the website. If you still need to reach him, please send an email to binoarealuyo@gmail.com.

From The Blog

huffpo: Dear Beautiful Mother . . . (Happy Mom’s Day!)

There will always be the unflinching devotion of a son to his mother, and history has shown many a similar story, and mine is similar too, except that I’m gay. A gay person’s life journey can have be made difficult by being rendered… “different.” You see, I never came out to our family. I never had to rehearse for weeks what to say, sit relatives down in a circle and make that traumatizing first confession — “I’m gay” — and leave the rest to the unforgiving hands of fate.

huff po: Dear Filipino Immigrants . . .

Converting immigrant communities into literary markets can be very challenging and complicated. Literature is introduced to most Filipinos in an academic setting as a top-down imposition more akin to catholic penance than scholarship. We certainly don’t equate reading literature with our hedonistic attachment to dancing, singing, and eating pork. And if Filipinos do read a book, their colonial dictates will have them picking up a non-Filipino author. Ah, heartbreaking truths!

HuffPo Blog: Dear Homophobic Philippines

It is difficult not to take the bigotry behind these articles personally, because I grew up in Manila and I had seen this culture of condemnation around me. By the time a gay child in the Philippines reaches adulthood, he has already survived an enormous amount of bullying, family rejection, public humiliation, catholic moral judgment, and other kinds of abuses that we all know nobody deserves.

And So Begins a Revolution

What the women of the Philippines must always remember is that foreign women didn’t colonize the Philippines and that the Catholic Church has no women in power. The country’s future depend on how she manages her own spiritual body, whether Father Faith or Father Hope approve it or not.

What's New?

The Philippine Edition of The Gods We Worship Live Next Door received the 28th Philippine National Book Award for Poetry in November, 2009 from the National Book Development Board and Manila Critic's Circle. The collection was orginally published by Utah Press in 2006 as a recipient of the Agha Shahid Ali Poetry Prize, and was released by Anvil Publishing in the Philippines in 2008. The Philippine National Book Awards honors the best books published in the Philippines in 2008. The Gods We Worship Live Next Door is technically Realuyo's first book published in the Philippines. Purchase information for the U.S. edition is available on this website. Other winners are listed here on Manila Times. Sample poem in The Nation.

Order Signed Copies from the Author

You can order signed copies of the award-winning poetry collection, The Gods We Worship Live Next Door" from the author for $10 plus mailing (in the U.S., a total of $12 +) . Please email author at binoarealuyo@gmail.com You can also pay by Paypal.
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