The Boy with the Pet Dog

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.25120/etropic.23.1.2024.4036

Keywords:

animality, tropical heat, queer coming-of-age, translation, Philippine fiction, tropical queer, queer writing desire

Abstract

Set at the beginning of the hot season in the Philippines, when heat starts to crawl on skin, the short fiction “The Boy with the Pet Dog” (“Ang Batang May Alagang Aso”) stages an encounter between the titular character and a young man from the province who intends to work on his family’s farm. Queerness figures in the narrative as intimately entangled with class, and becomes articulable only through a language made possible by the tropics itself, in the form of butterflies coming out of chrysalises, brown bodies glowing with sweat, and swiftlets flocking mango trees. At the heart of the story is a dog, whose unbridled elan unleashes the tempered and unnameable yearning that suffuses the narrative. With a title that seemingly alludes to Anton Chekhov’s famous short fiction, the story, in its cunning lightness, can be ultimately read as a rehearsal of tropical queer reimagination of writing desire.

Author Biographies

Allan R. Derain, Ateneo de Manila University

Allan N. Derain is a writer, visual artist, and teacher. He is the author of Aswanglaut (ADMU Press, 2021; sole Filipino novel included in the LITPROM Literaturen Der Welt), Iskrapbuk (UP Press, 2005; finalist, Madrigal-Gonzales Best First Book Award), The Next Great Tagalog Novel at Iba pang Kuwento (UP Press, 2019; finalist, Gintong Aklat Award; winner, National Book Award), and Ang Banal na Aklat ng mga Kumag (Anvil, 2014; winner, National Book Award, Carlos Palanca Memorial Award Grand Prize, and Filipino Readers’ Choice Award). He edited the anthology May Tiktik sa Bubong, May Sigbin sa Silong (ADMU Press, 2017; winner, National Book Award and Gintong Aklat Award). He currently teaches creative writing, art appreciation, and Filipino literature at Ateneo de Manila University.

Christian Jil R. Benitez, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand/Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines

Christian Jil R. Benitez is a queer Filipino scholar, poet, and translator. He teaches at the Ateneo de Manila University, in the Philippines, where he earned his AB-MA in Filipino literature. He is currently pursuing his PhD in comparative literature at Chulalongkorn University, under a Second Century Fund (C2F) Scholarship. His critical and creative works have appeared in various journals and anthologies, the most recent of which include Poetry and the Global Climate Crisis (Routledge, 2023) and Here was Once the Sea: An Anthology of Southeast Asian Ecowriting (University of Hawaii Press, 2024). His first book, Isang Dalumat ng Panahon (ADMU Press, 2022), was awarded as the Best Book of Literary Studies/Cultural Criticism in the 41st Philippine National Book Awards.

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Published

2024-08-14

How to Cite

Derain, A. R., & Benitez, C. J. R. (2024). The Boy with the Pet Dog. ETropic: Electronic Journal of Studies in the Tropics, 23(1), 25–33. https://doi.org/10.25120/etropic.23.1.2024.4036

Issue

Vol. 23 No. 1 (2024): Queering the Tropics, Part 1: Tropical Materialisms, Queer Ecology & Spectral Tropicality

Section

Essays

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Copyright (c) 2024 CC-BY

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