Our Willful Naivete Shall Set Us Free: An Ongoing Conversation with Miguel Syjuco

Abstract

First eleven thousand words of an ongoing Canada-Cubao correspondence. Two young writers talk about writing: albeit both are provisionally despondent, incredibly, no one waxes nostalgic. Topics discussed: writing about home from a distance of an ocean and a continent, toughing it out journeyman-style, bayanihan vs. crab mentality, literature vs. everything else, the Great Pinoy Novel, and other pretentious, quite possibly neocolonial things.