Filipino-American Christina "Ting" Klein has just travelled from New York to Manila, both to escape her imminent divorce, and to begin research for a biography of Timicheg, an indigenous Filipino brought to America at the start of 20th century to be exhibited as part of a 'human zoo.' It has been a year since Ting's last visit, and one year since Procopio "Copo" Gumboc swept the elections in an upset and took power as president. Arriving unannounced at her aging Aunt's aristocratic home, Ting quickly falls into upper class Manila life—family gatherings at her cousin's compound; spending time with her best friend Inchoy, a gay socialist professor of philosophy; and a flirtation with her ex-boyfriend Chet, a wealthy businessman with questionable ties to the regime. All the while, family duty dictates that Ting be responsible for Laird, a cousin's fianc�, who has come from the States to rediscover his roots. As days pass, Ting witnesses modern Filipino society languishing under Gumboc's terrifying reign. To make her way, she must balance the aristocratic traditions of her extended family, seemingly at odds with both situation and circumstance, as well temper her stance towards a regime her loved ones are struggling to survive. Yet Ting cannot extricate herself from the increasingly repressive regime, and soon finds herself personally confronted by the horrifying realities of Gumboc's power. At once a propulsive look at contemporary Filipino politics and the history that impacted the country, The Human Zoo is a thrilling and provocative story from one of our most celebrated and important writers of literary fiction.
Author
Sabina Murray was born in 1968 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. She is of mixed parentage—her mother a Filipina from Manila, her father a former Jesuit scholastic turned anthropologist from Boston. Her parents met in Washington DC, where both were pursuing graduate degrees. At the age of two she moved to Perth with her family, when her father accepted a position at the University of Western Australia. In 1980 the family moved again, this time to Manila, to be closer to her mother’s family. Although Sabina Murray is an American citizen, she did not live again in the United States until she attended college. She feels that she moves easily through the various cultures that have forged her own identity: Australian, Filipino, and American. She now lives in Amherst, Massachusetts, with her family, where she directs, and teaches in, the Creative Writing Program at Umass. In 1989, Murray’s novel, Slow Burn, set in the decadent Manila of the mid-eighties, was accepted for publication, when Murray was twenty years old. Later, she attended the University of Texas at Austin where she started work on The Caprices, a short story collection that explores the Pacific Campaign of WWII. In 1999, Murray left Texas for Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she had a Radcliffe Fellowship at Harvard. In January, 2002, Murray published The Caprices, which won the PEN Faulkner Award. Murray’s next novel, A Carnivore’s Inquiry, follows Katherine Shea, a woman of strange appetites, as she moves from man to man ruminating on the nature of cannibalism in western history, literature and art. The book is a dark comedy that is concerned with power and hunger. Forgery is her most recent book, and this looks at authenticity by following Rupert Brigg, who is exploring art and escaping grief in Greece in the early sixties. Both novels were Chicago Tribune Best Books. Her most recent book, Tales of The New World, a collection of short stories with an interest in explorers, was released by Grove/Black Cat in November, 2011. She is hard at work on a novel that looks at the friendship between the Irish revolutionary Roger Casement and the artist Herbert Ward. Murray is also a screenwriter and wrote the script for the film Beautiful Country, released in 2005. Beautiful Country follows the story of Binh, a young Amerasian man who comes to the U.S. from Vietnam in search of the father he never knew. Terrence Malick commissioned Murray to write the screenplay. Murray has been a Michener Fellow at UT Austin, a Bunting fellow at Radcliffe, a Guggenheim Fellow, and has received the PEN/Faulkner Award, a Massachusetts Cultural Council Grant, a Umass Research and Creativity Award, and a Fred Brown Award for The Novel from the University of Pittsburgh. Beautiful Country was nominated for a Golden Bear and the screenplay was nominated for an Amanda Award (the Norwegian Oscars!) and an Independent Spirit Award.
