ABOUT THE BOOK

Encantada: The Essential Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo offers a selection of some of the writer’s most significant works, including excerpts from her novels, stories, tales, sketches, profiles, travel essays, travel memoirs, and criticism. In the Hispanic world, a man says, “Encantado,” and a woman, “Encantada,” upon meeting someone. It is another way of saying “mucho gusto” or “pleased/glad to meet you.” “Delighted,” however, is the better translation of the word, especially when one recalls and refers to the feeling triggered upon encountering Hidalgo’s works. “Charmed,” which is a stronger equivalent of “Encantado/a,” is an even better description of a reader’s reaction to Hidalgo’s narratives.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo is a writer of fiction and nonfiction, a critic, and a literary scholar. Hidalgo is also a seasoned academic administrator, having served in UP as vice president for Public Affairs, director of the UP Institute of Creative Writing, and director of the UP Press; and in UST as director of the UST Publishing House. At present, she is director of the UST Center for Creative Writing and Literary Studies, and professor emeritus of UP Diliman. She continues to teach graduate courses in creative writing and literature at UST and UP.

ABOUT THE EDITOR

Ruth Jordana Pison teaches Philippine literature and critical theory at the Department of English and Comparative Literature (DECL) of the College of Arts and Letters (CAL) in UP Diliman.

Her works on Philippine novels, Alternative Histories: Martial Law Novels as Counter-Memory (2005) and Dangerous Liaisons: Sexing the Nation in Novels by Philippine Women Writers, 1993–2006 (2010), were published by the UP Press. In 2021, she joined the editorial staff of Humanities Diliman as editor in chief.