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The Singing Detainee and the Librarian with One Book
Michael Beltran
2025
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In late 2019, journalist Michael Beltran found himself in the city of Utrecht, the Netherlands, deep in conversation with Filipino revolutionary leaders Jose Maria Sison and Julie de Lima. What was planned to be a feature article ended up as a collection of observations on what it means to live in exile. Sison and de Lima are maligned by governments and revered by activists worldwide, all while spending most of their time tucked away in a small Dutch neighborhood. What Beltran realized was that it was impossible to speak of their exile without understanding the history and community surrounding it. The Singing Detainee and the Librarian with One Book shares lesser known tales about two of the most well-known revolutionary exiles and their comrades. It speaks of a community and history behind the ordeal, weaving it into the Filipino diaspora. Sison passed away in December 2022, making this book a record of one of the last and arguably lengthiest interviews he ever gave. The essays track the couple’s prolonged stay as refugees, how the Philippine liberation movement found a home in Europe, and how migrants and activists alike gravitated toward each other while adrift from their homeland. “Exile,” Beltran says, “is imprisonment by displacement […] when people are condemned to leave their lands dressed in invisible chains.
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Keywords
- Communist Party of the Philippines
- Exile
- Jose Marian Sison
- Julieta de Lima
- New People's Army
- Philippines
- political refugee
- thema EDItEUR::1 Place qualifiers::1F Asia::1FM South East Asia::1FMP Philippines
- thema EDItEUR::F Fiction and Related items::FX Fiction: narrative themes::FXQ Narrative theme: Displacement, exile, migration
- thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JB Society and culture: general::JBF Social and ethical issues::JBFG Refugees and political asylum
- thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JP Politics and government::JPF Political ideologies and movements::JPFC Far-left political ideologies and movements
Links
DOI: 10.53288/0529.1.00Editions