Oči svaté Lucie – Cordero Kristian Sendon (2025)

Three Filipino Stories of Clay and Blood

A unique insight into Filipino culture from an acclaimed poet and prose writer

Three stories by Filipino author Kristian Corder capture the dark atmosphere of a post-colonial society, where old rural traditions and customs, ancient myths, and folk belief in the magical power of Christian saints clash with the pressures of the modern world, rapid urbanization, and militarization. The bloody backdrop of his sketches is the constant violent clashes between government forces and rebels, accompanied by political machinations and pervasive corruption.

In these almost Macbeth-like settings, Corder's heroes live their ordinary lives: in 'The Worship of Saint James,' it is little Tiago, who desperately wants to be like his soldier father; in 'The Eyes of Saint Lucia,' it is young family man Pastor, who wants to work abroad to provide his wife with a color television; and in 'The Carnival of San Cristobal,' it is the girl Dida, who watches a freak show with fascination and finds parallels in their deformities with her own microcosm.