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Classic story of the last days of Spanish rule in the Philippines.

Filipino national hero Jose Rizal wrote The Social Cancer in Berlin in 1887. Upon his return to his country, he was summoned to the palace by the Governor General because of the subversive ideas his book had inspired in the nation. Rizal wrote of his consequent persecution by the church: "My book made a lot of noise; everywhere, I am asked about it. They wanted to anathematize me ['to excommunicate me'] because of it ... I am considered a German spy, an agent of Bismarck, they say I am a Protestant, a freemason, a sorcerer, a damned soul and evil. It is whispered that I want to draw plans, that I have a foreign passport and that I wander through the streets by night ..."

José Rizal has a good claim to being the first Asian nationalist. An extremely talented Malay born a hundred years ago in a small town near Manila, educated partly in the Philippines and partly in Europe, Rizal inspired the Filipinos by his writing and example to make the first nationalist revolution in Asia in 1896. Today the Philippines revere Rizal as their national hero, and they regard his two books, The Lost Eden (Noli Me Tangere) and The Subversive (El Filibusterismo) as the gospel of their nationalism.The Subversive, first published in 1891, is strikingly timely today. New nations emerging in Africa and Asia are once again in conflict with their former colonial masters, as were the Filipinos with their Spanish rulers in Rizal's day. The Subversive poses questions about colonialism which are still being asked today: does a "civilizing mission" justify subjection of a people? Should a colony aim at assimilation or independence? If independence, should it be by peaceful evolution or force of arms?Despite the seriousness of its theme, however, The Subversive is more than a political novel. It is a romantic, witty, satirical portrait of Spanish colonial rule in the Philippines at the end of the nineteenth century, written in the tradition of the great adventure romances. The translation by Leon Ma. Guerrero, Philippine ambassador to the Court of St. James, conveys the immediacy of the original, and makes this important work available to a new generation of readers. His translation of The Lost Eden is also available in the Norton Library.

A study of Rizal, his works, and his influence in Southeast Asia; how his contemporaries saw him; the role Rizal played in inspiring Indonesian nationalists; how the Indonesians and Malaysians appropriated him in the movement for independence, and how he figures in the region's intellectual, political and literary discourse.