City of Asylum will host author Gina Apostol for a free conversation and reading on July 23. A synopsis of her latest novel, Insurrecto:
Two women, a Filipino translator and an American filmmaker, go on a road trip in Duterte’s Philippines, collaborating and clashing in the writing of a film script about a massacre during the Philippine-American War. Chiara is working on a film about an incident in Balangiga, Samar, in 1901, when Filipino revolutionaries attacked an American garrison, and in retaliation American soldiers created “a howling wilderness” of the surrounding countryside. Magsalin reads Chiara’s film script and writes her own version. Insurrecto contains within its dramatic action two rival scripts from the filmmaker and the translator—one about a white photographer, the other about a Filipino schoolteacher.The event runs from 7:00 to 8:30 pm; it's free but online RSVP is required. The City of Asylum's Alphabet City venue is located at 40 N. West Ave. on the North Side (map).