Returning to My Father's Kitchen: Essays
A young Filipino writer’s odyssey toward home, in the wake of the loss of her poet father
 
Feeling untethered after her beloved poet father passes away while she is living abroad, Monica Macansantos decides to return to the Philippines to regain her bearings. But with her father gone and her adult life rooted in the United States and New Zealand, can the land of her birth still serve as a place of healing?
 
In fifteen richly felt essays, Macansantos considers her family’s history in the Philippines, her own experiences as an exile, and the parent who was the heart of her family’s kitchen, whether standing at the stove to prepare dinner or sitting at the table to scribble in his notebook. Macansantos finds herself remaking her father’s chicken adobo, but also closely rereading his poems. As she reckons with his identity as an artist, she also comes into her own as a writer, and she invites us to consider whether it is possible to carry our homes with us wherever we go.
 
1146594847
Returning to My Father's Kitchen: Essays
A young Filipino writer’s odyssey toward home, in the wake of the loss of her poet father
 
Feeling untethered after her beloved poet father passes away while she is living abroad, Monica Macansantos decides to return to the Philippines to regain her bearings. But with her father gone and her adult life rooted in the United States and New Zealand, can the land of her birth still serve as a place of healing?
 
In fifteen richly felt essays, Macansantos considers her family’s history in the Philippines, her own experiences as an exile, and the parent who was the heart of her family’s kitchen, whether standing at the stove to prepare dinner or sitting at the table to scribble in his notebook. Macansantos finds herself remaking her father’s chicken adobo, but also closely rereading his poems. As she reckons with his identity as an artist, she also comes into her own as a writer, and she invites us to consider whether it is possible to carry our homes with us wherever we go.
 
22.0 Pre Order
Returning to My Father's Kitchen: Essays

Returning to My Father's Kitchen: Essays

Returning to My Father's Kitchen: Essays

Returning to My Father's Kitchen: Essays

Paperback

$22.00 
  • SHIP THIS ITEM
    Available for Pre-Order. This item will be released on May 15, 2025

Related collections and offers


Overview

A young Filipino writer’s odyssey toward home, in the wake of the loss of her poet father
 
Feeling untethered after her beloved poet father passes away while she is living abroad, Monica Macansantos decides to return to the Philippines to regain her bearings. But with her father gone and her adult life rooted in the United States and New Zealand, can the land of her birth still serve as a place of healing?
 
In fifteen richly felt essays, Macansantos considers her family’s history in the Philippines, her own experiences as an exile, and the parent who was the heart of her family’s kitchen, whether standing at the stove to prepare dinner or sitting at the table to scribble in his notebook. Macansantos finds herself remaking her father’s chicken adobo, but also closely rereading his poems. As she reckons with his identity as an artist, she also comes into her own as a writer, and she invites us to consider whether it is possible to carry our homes with us wherever we go.
 

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780810148390
Publisher: Northwestern University Press
Publication date: 05/15/2025
Pages: 192
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

MONICA MACANSANTOS is the author of the story collection Love and Other Rituals, and her work has appeared in Colorado ReviewThe Hopkins ReviewBennington Review, and Lit Hub, among others. She is a 2024-2025 Shearing Fellow with the Black Mountain Institute.

Table of Contents

Returning to My Father’s Kitchen
Little Girls
Becoming a Writer: The Silences We Write Against
I Do Not Know How It Is in Your Country
To Resist Being Unseen
A Shared Stillness
My Father and W. B. Yeats
Eastbourne, Wellington
The Power of a Vacant House
James
Thirty Minutes and a World Apart
Polina
Katherine Mansfield’s Light
My Father and Yadi
Disappearing Houses
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
From the B&N Reads Blog

Customer Reviews