This monograph by Conchitina Cruz seeks to expand possibilities in imagining, writing, and reading the essay by exploring key concepts and issues that undergird it as a genre in Philippine literary production. It tracks the emergence of “creative nonfiction”, examines assumptions of what constitutes the personal when writing from lived experience, and ponders an approach for an “expansive first person” essay with a keen regard for accuracy and accountability.

It also engages with studies of Philippine essay production both remote and recent, from post-war anthologies by A. G. Abadilla and Leopoldo Y. Yabes, to the works of Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo, Ramon Guillermo, and Martin Villanueva in the early decades of the twenty-first century. Drawing from a bilingual archive, it provides a provisional chronological reading list of essays by Filipino authors from the era of the Japanese Occupation to the aftermath of the Marawi Siege.

Conchitina Cruz is a Filipina poet and currently teaches at the Department of English and Comparative Literature, University of the Philippines Diliman.