Exploding Galaxies brings Alfred A. Yuson’s award-winning novel Great Philippine Jungle Energy Cafe to a new generation of readers, where Leon Kilat, José Rizal, and James Dean collide across Philippine history.
UPDATE: As of September 7, 2026, publisher Exploding Galaxies announced that it will no longer be promoting and re-publishing Great Philippine Jungle Energy Cafe.
Exploding Galaxies has announced via its official Instagram page that Alfred A. Yuson’s Great Philippine Jungle Energy Cafe will be its next release, bringing the award-winning novel back to shelves for a new generation of readers.
Founded by Mara Coson in 2023, the independent Filipino publisher has built its catalog around significant works of Philippine writing that have become difficult to find. Its previous releases include Wilfrido D. Nolledo’s But for the Lovers, Linda Ty-Casper’s The Three-Cornered Sun, and Erwin E. Castillo’s The Firewalkers, along with collections by food writers Doreen G. Fernandez and Edilberto N. Alegre.
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Alfred A. Yuson’s “Great Philippine Jungle Energy Cafe”: About The Exploding Galaxies Republication
First published in 1988, Great Philippine Jungle Energy Cafe won the Grand Prize for the novel at the 1987 Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature. Its story moves freely across different periods of Philippine history, led by a fictionalized version of the Visayan revolutionary hero Pantaleon Villegas, better known as Leon Kilat.
According to Exploding Galaxies, “The novel begins in Bacong, a little town outside Dumaguete, and follows the adventures of a fictionalized real-life Visayan revolutionary hero Pantaleon Villegas, also known as Leon Kilat, as he swallows the sap of a banana heart and his otherwise short life is thrust forward into the writer’s moment, in the mid-’80s, in the imagined Great Philippine Jungle Energy Café. In this cafe reminiscent of Malate’s most spirited days in places like Los Indios Bravos, we witness another coming together, but this time of historically anachronistic encounters, including José Rizal with James Dean, with Virginia “Virgie” Moreno, and somewhere there, with the writer himself.”
The idea to republish the novel took shape around the launch of The Firewalkers, where Yuson reunited with fellow writers Gemino “Jimmy” Abad, Marra Lanot, Jose “Pete” Lacaba, Charlson Ong, and Cristina Pantoja-Hidalgo. The gathering also underscored a familiar problem: many important books from their generation remain hard to find.
The Exploding Galaxies edition of Great Philippine Jungle Energy will be available beginning September 10, 2026, online and at bookstores. For more information and to order a copy, visit Exploding Galaxies’ official website.
All photos courtesy of Exploding Galaxies
Frequently Asked Questions
Exploding Galaxies has announced that its next release will be Alfred A. Yuson’s Great Philippine Jungle Energy Cafe.
Great Philippine Jungle Energy Cafe was written by Alfred A. Yuson, also known as “Krip” Yuson.
The novel follows a fictionalized version of Visayan revolutionary hero Pantaleon Villegas, better known as Leon Kilat. After swallowing the sap of a banana heart, he is transported from his own time into the mid-1980s and the imagined Great Philippine Jungle Energy Café.
The novel brings together historical, literary, and cultural figures including Leon Kilat, José Rizal, James Dean, Virginia “Virgie” Moreno, and Alfred A. Yuson himself.
Exploding Galaxies says the new edition of Great Philippine Jungle Energy Cafe is launching soon. An official release date has yet to be announced.
