Synopsis "Acapulco at Sunset and Other Stories: Collection"
First published in the Philippines in 1995, this 2020 US Edition of Acapulco at Sunset and Other Stories collects seventeen stories inspired by the author Cecilia Manguerra Brainard's Filipino and Filipino American experiences; the short stories are grouped into four categories: Long Ago Tales, Stories from the '60s and '70s, Stories from the '90s, and American Tales. The poet Marjorie Evasco praises the book saying: "The stories of Cecilia Manguerra Brainard tell of voyages the heart could have taken, of places haunted by old memories like ghosts lingering under an ancient mango tree, of times seemingly irretrievable but always there at the farthest end of the thread of remembering" Professor Les Adler writes in Pilipinas that "Brainard enriches the conventional understanding of exile by applying the concept to Filipino experience in the Philippines. She is thereby able to show the cultural and social issues that a Filipino/a faces while in exile are universal Filipino experiences." Isagani R. Cruz's review in StarWeek notes that: "In Brainard's stories, Acapulco and Intramuros are the same, and at the same time, completely different places. Dead characters and live characters talk to each other nonchalantly. A young poor boy falls in love with an older rich woman, and by loving her, kills her. Filipinos find their identity in, of course, San Francisco, but not so ordinarily, in Alaska. The green card - actually blue - spells the difference between authenticity and an authentic life, between dreaming and the American dream. Brainard is the author and editor of over twenty books of fiction and nonfiction. She is the recipient of several awards including a California Arts Council Fellowship, a Brody Arts Fund Award, and an Outstanding Individual Award from her birth city of Cebu, Philippines. Her work is widely anthologized and has been translated into Finnish and Turkish. Her literary endeavors are considered significant contributions to Filipino, Philippine-American, as well as Asian American literature.
