Jessica Zafra's Blog, page 3

The Age of Umbrage review: Popular Filipino author/columnist & podcaster Jessica Zafra’s first novel

The Age of Umbrage by Jessica Zafra is available at Shopee, Lazada, Mt Cloud, and the Ateneo University Press. For e-books and foreign orders, please go to facebook.com/ateneo press. by Noelle Q. De Jesus in the Asian Books Blog, 15 October 2020 That Jessica Zafra is a great writer goes without saying; but her wit […]

The Age of Umbrage review: Jessica Zafra pens a wry coming-of-age tale

The Age of Umbrage by Jessica Zafra is available at Shopee, Lazada, Mt Cloud, and the Ateneo University Press. by Scott Garceau in the Philippine Star, 11 October 2020 Jessica Zafra once took umbrage when I suggested one of Haruki Murakami’s novels was a doorstop. “That’s not a doorstop,” she scoffed, referring to The Wind-Up […]

Thanks for attending The Age of Umbrage book launch! If you missed it, you can still watch the reading and Q&A online.

Thank you to Fifi and Padma at Mt Cloud Bookshop for organizing the online event, and to everyone who attended the launch last night! If you missed it, you can still watch the launch at the Mt Cloud page. The Age of Umbrage is published by Ateneo University Press. Cover art by Bianca Alexandra Ortigas. […]

You’re invited to The Age of Umbrage online launch on Saturday, 17 Oct at 7pm

Join us at www.facebook.com/mtcloud on Saturday, 17 October at 7pm for the launch of The Age of Umbrage. I will read from my novel and then do a Q&A. Get your books now at Mt Cloud, Shopee, Lazada, and soon at Fully Booked.

My first novel, The Age of Umbrage, is now available at Mt Cloud, Shopee, and Lazada!!!

There is no acknowledgments section in my new book or it would be longer than the novel (126 pages only). This novel took way too long to come into being, and it would not exist without my friends. Who, being my friends, would prefer not to be mentioned. (If someone announces it loudly, check with […]

Journal of a Lockdown, 22 Sept 2020. The Burnt Orange Heresy: Thrilling, no. Gorgeous, yes.

In Milan, shady art critic James Figueras and Berenice, his mysterious American lover whom he just met yesterday, is invited to the lakeside villa of rich-as-Croesus art collector/gallerist Cassidy and roped into a scheme to steal a painting from reclusive artist Debney, who may have set his own work on fire many years ago. Giuseppe […]

The Dream of Reason Creates Monsters, vol 1. My historical novella about Rizal and the Ilustrados in Europe.

P250/issue + shipping. The first issue is out now. Second issue in November, third issue in January, and fourth issue in March. Subscriptions are available. Email saffron.safin@gmail.com or DM @jessicazafrascats. We donate part of the proceeds to the UP Ikot and Toki drivers, whose livelihood has been affected by the pandemic.

Journal of a Lockdown, 8 September 2020: The joy and sorrow of seeing Chadwick Boseman in Da 5 Bloods

Nearly everything I know about Black American History, I learned from Spike Lee movies. They are compelling and vivid, funny and furious, and they are an education. He will interrupt the flow of his own movie to have a character address the audience directly and deliver a lecture about some point of African-American life that […]

What if one of the Ilustrados who hung out in Paris with Jose Rizal was a woman?

We’re told that Rizal and the ilustrados lived in Paris in the 1880s. What if one of the ilustrados was a woman? An independent woman who wore men’s suits, knew all the interesting characters of the day, and did whatever she wanted? She didn’t exist, so I made her up. Who could draw a later […]

Journal of a Lockdown, 24 August 2020: Save me, tsundoku. New books by Ali Smith, Charlie Kaufman

Reading Ali Smith is the most exhilarating experience. The things she can do with words—she bends them to her will, makes them fly with no visible effort. Her writing is exuberant, eccentric, and just when we thought everything has been done, original. Beginning in 2016, when Brexit signalled the end of the world as we […]