02 Feb Gina Apostol

The Distinguished Inouye Chair, the acclaimed novelist Gina Apostol, is speaking next week, Thursday, Feb 8, 12-1:15, KUY 410. Her talk is (tantalizingly) entitled: “Writing A Novel About My Mother: What the Hell Was I Thinking?” Please see below for more details:

Thursday, February 8: “Writing A Novel About My Mother: What the Hell Was I Thinking?”

Gina Apostol, Novelist, and Dan and Maggie Inouye Chair in Democratic Ideals, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa

With introduction from Vina A. Lanzona, Department of History, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa

Cosponsored by Hamilton Library, the Center for Oral History, Conflict and Peace Specialist, and the Departments of American Studies, English, Ethnic Studies, History, Political Science, and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

Location: Kuykendall 410

Time: 12:00–1:15 pm HST

Gina Apostol will read from her novel La Tercera and talk about the terrors and perhaps truths arising from using autobiographical material to create a novel. La Tercera is the only novel Apostol has written deliberately based on her family and her growing up in Tacloban, Leyte, Philippines. She will reflect on the process and what she has learned as a writer.

Gina Apostol has written five novels, among them Insurrecto, named by Publishers Weekly one of the Ten Best Books of 2018, and her most recent, La Tercera, out in May 2023. She has been awarded the Rome Prize, the PEN/Open Book Award, and two Philippine National Book Awards. She is the 2024 Inouye Chair for Democratic Ideals at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. She grew up in Tacloban, Leyte, in the Philippines, and lives in New York and western Massachusetts.