6/12/2023 0 Comments Never Have I Ever by Isabel Yap![]() ![]() I really did have a teacher in elementary school that told us about her third eye. ![]() Like, I can have a conversation with people about white ladies or duwende, and it’ll be taken at face value. except that sounds more dramatic than it is in our everyday lives. We’re a people that believes in the supernatural. Isabel Yap: Thank you for the kind words! I actually feel like all the magical elements blending with real life is very representative of Filipino culture, so it came through pretty naturally for me. How do you see these diverse interests coalescing? It feels like such a delicate and impressive balancing act. Megan Kakimoto: I’m so taken by the creative experimentation of your work, and how you incorporate magic, myth, and storytelling into more familiar landscapes while never sacrificing what feels to be at the heart of these stories: that is, Filipino narratives. ![]() I had the privilege of speaking with Yap over email to discuss her approach to writing nested stories, the Filipino folklore she grew up reading, and how her tech day job influences her fiction, among other things. These thirteen stories breathe life into elegy while weaving magic and monsters into the contemporary horrors of everyday life. She brings to the page everything from urban legends to the unique challenges of online dating. In her debut story collection Never Have I Ever, Isabel Yap has crafted an entire universe predicated on Filipino culture, history, and mythology. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |