Nick Joaquin is widely considered one of the greatest Filipino writers but he has remained little-known outside his home country despite writing in English. With the post-colonial sensibilities of Junot Diaz Teju Cole and Jhumpa Lahiri and an ironic perspective of colonial history resonant with Marques and Llosa Joaquin is a long-neglected writer ready to join the ranks of the world classics. His work meditates on the questions and challenges of the Filipino individual's new freedom after a long history of colonialism exploring folklore centuries-old Catholic rites the Spanish colonial past magical realism and baroque splendour and excess. This collection features his best-known story 'The Woman Who Had Two Navels' centred on Philippine emigrants living in Hong Kong and later expanded into a novel the much-anthologised story 'May Day Eve' and a canonical play A Portrait of the Artist as Filipino.