Reviews

Hindi mo ibababa. Walang kamalay-malay kang ipapaloob sa mga pahina. Mahirap hindi mahumaling sa mga paraan at gawi ng mga nagkukwento sa istorya. Ang paglalahad ay may sopistikadong katiyakan, may tahimik na landi at angas. Walang salita o patlang na hindi mo ibibilang. Dadaloy ng kusa at yayayain kang lumusong, iiwanan kang bitin, nakatanghod at mistulang nabudol. Magpakaswabe ka ma’t magkaila, iduduyan ka pa rin niya pabalik sa mga natutulog mong alaala. Muli, iiwan kang deretso ang mukha, nagtatanong, naiinggit kung paano niya niraramdam, tinatanggap, nakikita, at naaalala ang mundo at ang buong hiwaga’t paghihingalo nito.–John Lloyd Cruz, award-winning actor

What is real horror? A three-year-old child’s disemboweled corpse to be used for transporting contraband narcotics? Or knowing that complete strangers are familiar with your most intimate memories like a dirty DVD for sale? Like the best storytellers, Yvette Tan knows when to reveal and when to conceal, when to push and just when to hold back. The title story for instance, clocks in to just around 560 words, still significantly less than the average post of your Facebook intellectual. For Tan, it seems, horror is not an end unto itself. The shock is in the recognition of the nature of true evil and it does not necessarily involve anything supernatural as the opening tale so deftly shows. Told with precision and economy, the stories here are black fingernails carefully scraping on the surface of the gore and gristle to reveal what resembles the most grotesque monster there is: the human face.

–Lourd de Veyra, journalist, TV host, and author of Marka Demonyo Or Poem on Love, Faith, and Duct Tape

Waking The Dead is a wonderful collection of stories that will satisfy the most finicky fan of Philippine folklore. Yvette Tan reminds us of the whirlwinds, fires, and shooting stars that stirred within us before our hopes for magic and mystery were washed away. The horror in these pages originates not with the “monsters,” but with the undeniable examination of the human condition.

–Jordan Clark, The Aswang Project

Author Biography

Yvette Natalie U. Tan is one of the Philippines’ most celebrated horror writers. Her stories “Kulog” and “Sidhi,” both in this book, won the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature in different categories in 2003.

She wrote the feature film, Ilawod, directed by Dan Villegas and starring Iza Calzado and Ian Veneracion, and co-wrote the libretto for Opera: A Rebirth in Arabesque, a ballet based on the work of artist Gabby Barredo, with Erwin Romulo which was performed by Ballet Philippines in the CCP Main Theatre as part of  Art Fair 2016.

She was the official scribe of the Manila Biennale in 2018, documenting the relationship between art, the viewer, and the Walled City of Intramuros.

In 2021, she collaborated with Team Manila as part of the National Book Development Board’s (NBDB) Philippine pavilion in the Frankfurt Book Fair. “The Child Abandoned,” also in this book, appeared as part of the programme in the Singapore Writers Festival in the same year.

She describes her fiction as stories that could happen to anyone.

Even to you, dear reader.

Find out more at yvettetan.com and follow her on Twitter and Instagram at @yvette_tan.