Merlinda Bobis’ In the Name of the Trees beguiles with its intricate prose and compressed poetics. In less than 150 pages, it tells the story of four generations of Bikol women, all of whom must, in various ways, resist and adapt to the colonisation and violent regimes of the Philippines.
Its capacious text demonstrates the ways in which present and past are inextricably bound, and how acts of violence disrupt the very divisions and boundaries they attempt to enforce. Throughout the novel, myths, stories, secrets and truths are powerful forces that bind and heal, create and destroy.
