Description
Fiction. Asian & Asian American Studies. From multi-awarded poet, writer, artist, and editor Eileen R. Tabios comes a first novel, DOVELION: A FAIRY TALE FOR OUR TIMES. In this inventive myth that straddles the binary of traditional narrative and experimental fiction, poet Elena Theeland overcomes the trauma of her past to raise a family who would overthrow the dictatorship in Pacifica. She is aided by artist Ernst Blazer whose father, a CIA spy, instigated the murder of Elena's father, a rebel leader. As her family frees Pacifica from the dictator's dynastic regime, Elena discovers herself a member of an indigenous tribe once thought to be erased through genocide. The discovery reveals her life to epitomize the birth of a modern-day "Baybay" in the tradition of Pacifica's indigenous spiritual and community leaders. Unfolding through lyrical and spare vignettes, DOVELION presents the effects of colonialism and empire, while incorporating meditations on poetry, art, orphanhood, and indigenous values. Glimpses are provided of spy warfare, internet-based rebellions, and the insidious effects of beauty pageants. Relief is provided through Elena's love of Wikipedia and the worl'’s most simple but delicious recipe for adobo. Ultimately, DOVELION and Elena's story bespeaks the unavoidable nature of humanity: a prevailing interconnection that can cancel past, present, and future into a singular Now.
Author Bio
Poet and writer Eileen Tabios was born in the Philippines and moved to the United States when she was 10. She earned a BA in political science from Barnard College and an MBA from New York University's Stern School of Business. Founder and editor of the online poetry review journal GALATEA RESURRECTS (A POETRY ENGAGEMENT), Tabios has authored essays, fiction, and collections of mixed-genre writing. Her many collections of poetry include Beyond Life Sentences: Poems (1998), Ecstatic Mutations: Experiments in the Poetry Laboratory (2000), Reproductions of the Empty Flagpole (2002), Footnotes to Algebra: Uncollected Poems 1995-2009 (2009), 5 Shades of Gray (2012), The Awakening (2013), Sun Stigmata (2014), Invent(st)ory: Selected Catalog Poems and New 1996-2105 (2015), Love in a Time of Belligerence (2017), Murder Death Resurrection: A Poetry Generator (2018), and Hiraeth: Tercets from the Last Archipelago (2018), among many others.
Author City: SAN FRANCISCO, CA USA