infinite lives, infinite deaths

Genre-defying stories from a nightmarish version of Manila

A family’s noodle restaurant is converted into a Norse-themed girly bar. A group of children takes a traumatic field trip. A Spanish friar meets a Chinese convert bearing the stigmata. A professor of applied folkloristics discusses the case of a young girl who returned home as a crone a few days after her elopement. A grant application assessment details the context and procedures that govern a concentration camp for aged prostitutes. A Chinese-Filipino expatriate returns home and uncovers a family secret. A failed doctor comes face-to-face with the possibilities that never materialized throughout his life. In the macabre world of Infinite Lives, Infinite Deaths, stories straddle the borders of horror, magic realism, metafiction, and science fiction, stitching together elements from world mythology and folklore, Philippine history and society, and the Chinese-Filipino experience.

Douglas James Limpe Candano holds a bachelor’s in development studies from the Ateneo de Manila University (Development Studies Departmental Award, Loyola Schools Awards for the Arts in Fiction) and a master’s in urban planning from McGill University. His fiction has won several national level awards, including the Philippines Free Press Literary Award and the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Award for Literature, and has been published and anthologized in numerous publications and books in the Philippines.