A novel of inheritance, class, nationalism and betrayal from one of the major figures of Philippine literature. 

My Brother, My Executioner follows Luis Asperri, a successful Manila journalist and illegitimate son of a wealthy landowner, as he is pulled back into the world he has tried to leave behind: the feudal estate, the family name, the peasant struggle, and the political violence that underwrites respectability. The “brother” of the title is not only literal but historical — the divided self, the divided nation, the person who benefits from the structure that destroys the people closest to him.

Sionil José writes social realism with a hard moral edge. It has that useful mid-century political-novel seriousness: people arguing over art, nationalism, justice, duty, writing, and whether literature can mean anything when the poor are still being used as scenery by the powerful. Very much for readers of postcolonial fiction, political family sagas, Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, José Rizal-adjacent histories, and anyone interested in literature as a record of class violence.

Solidaridad Publishing House paperback, fifth printing, 2005. Copyright 1988 by F. Sionil José. Cover design by Irwin Nicor Jose. Good second-hand condition.