Dusk: A Novel

By F. Sionil José

With Dusk (originally published in the Philippines as Po-on), F. Sionil Jose begins his five-novel Rosales Saga, which the poet and critic Ricaredo Demetillo called "the first great Filipino novels written in English." Set in the 1880s, Dusk records the exile of a tenant family from its village and the new life it attempts to make in the small town of Rosales. Here commences the epic tale of a family unwillingly thrown into the turmoil of history. But this is more than a historical novel; it is also the eternal story of man's tortured search for true faith and the larger meaning of existence. Jose has achieved a fiction of extraordinary scope and passion, a book as meaningful to Philippine literature as One Hundred Years of Solitude is to Latin American literature.



"The foremost Filipino novelist in English, his novels deserve a much wider readership than the Philippines can offer."--Ian Buruma, New York Review of Books


"Tolstoy himself, not to mention Italo Svevo, would envy the author of this story."--Chicago Tribune

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Mar 20, 2013
• ISBN: 9780307830302

Reviews for Dusk

[rise_2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Po-on (also published as Dusk) is the first chronological part of F. Sionil José's epic story consisting of five volumes and collectively known as the Rosales saga. It is a historical and political novel set in Luzon Island during the last days of Spanish rule in the Philippines in late 19th century up to the entry of American imperialists. It traces the southward journey of an extended family evicted from their homes by Spanish authorities. The Salvador family's journey is marked by indescribable hardship. It also depicts the enduring character of small peoples and their continuing struggle against colonial powers (Spanish and American) and greedy landowners.The novel is written in very spare, very transparent, and direct prose, devoid of any flourishes yet lyrical nonetheless. F. Sionil José is always spoken of as a contender for the Nobel Prize for Literature. That he hasn't won yet may be explained by the fact that he is not what one would usually consider a prose stylist and that his novels are sometimes weighed by their political themes. Among Filipino novelists in the English language, the late Nick Joaquín and N. V. M. Gonzalez are arguably better writers than him. Even so, his engagement with questions of national identity and social justice makes him a novelist worth reading. His aesthetic can be summed up by the words of one of this novel's pivotal characters:"Remember, Eustaquio, these are curtains to a window. And the words are themselves the window. First, the writing must be neat but not ornate for if I wanted beautiful letters, then I would have nothing but a page of the alphabet in ornate lettering. The Chinese consider calligraphy as an art form and it could be beautiful, but attention, as tradition demands, is drawn to the shape of the characters themselves. Great calligraphers are, therefore, great poets, too. But you are not Chinese. Words should not hinder the expression of thought unless one is expressing poetry. I am not writing poetry; I am writing to convince people of the validity of our struggle, its righteousness, and the utter fallacy and hypocrisy of the Americans in saying we are not capable of self-government."

[riida_3 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

as with his other novels i've read, f. sionil jose poignanly reminds me of my origins, and that the story he tells is essentially mine.

[urduha_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Wow. This is such a beautiful novel. The prose is like poetry.