The Philippine publisher’s sixth title is also its first short story collection, composed of 16 tales spanning the career of writer Wilfrido D. Nolledo.
Exploding Galaxies has announced its first short story collection and sixth title, Canticles for Dark Lovers. The book features works by Filipino writer Wilfrido D. Nolledo, who also penned the publication’s debut novel But for the Lovers, republished in 2023 to mark Exploding Galaxies’ launch.
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About Canticles For Dark Lovers
Canticles for Dark Lovers includes 16 stories published from 1955 to 1971, covering the early years of Nolledo’s career to his time at the esteemed Iowa Writers’ Workshop in the U.S., where he wrote But for the Lovers. The collection features the writer’s most awarded short stories, together with previously uncollected writing and a new foreword from his wife, Blanca D. Nolledo.
Fellow writers and artists have praised Nolledo’s works. Novelist Erwin E. Castillo writes, “This new, torrential collection demonstrates how Nolledo created a language whose vocabulary, syntax, and diction expresses our oppressive and inescapable circumstances, our aloneness, so beautifully, so bravely.” Poet and novelist Alfred A. Yuson shares, “The fiction and poetry that turned me on in those early days of the ’60s were of the sort that put a premium on riveting, fresh, adroit articulation that was as lyrical as … well, as what was consistently dished out by Wilfrido D. Nolledo.”
Sculptor Julie Lluch also shares, “Before my distressed mind could even begin to unpack their inarticulable meanings, Nolledo’s prose bewitched me and swept me away in a torrent of intoxicating beauty and prodigious power.”
Below is the collection’s official synopsis.
A lover knifing another in defense and then defiance, the price of a daughter’s filial love, letters read aloud, a body draped in blood holding a spotless veil, a straitlaced salaryman overcharged for a recording of his son’s voice, infatuation at a teaspoon of sugar, long-distance space texting, and yet again a woman singing at the dreamlike edge between a man’s breath and the next.
By turns grisly and tender, Canticles for Dark Lovers presents 16 short stories, initially published from 1955 to 1971, by Wilfrido D. Nolledo. The past devours the present in this new collection, which includes an early version of Nolledo’s novel But for the Lovers (“Of Things Guadalupe”); his most awarded short stories (“Rice Wine,” “Adios, Ossimandas,” and “Kayumanggi, Mon Amour”); and previously uncollected writing that illustrates the breadth of his repertoire (“Guernica and the Blue Star,” “For Alonzo, Among the Alfalfa,” and “Moratorium Est Finie”).
A Peek Inside The Collection
Curious? Here are a few excerpts from different stories featured in the collection.
“Soon the sun would warm the chill, the water would melt into tears, and the flesh would heal and the heart remember, for in the sunlight that walked in the rain, something had happened: for it had been a night of lovers.”
— from “Canticle for Dark Lovers”
“This was her world and it came to her with orchids.”
— from“Amor de la Calle”
“Look around you and see the inequality of love. Love your wife and she runs away with another man. Love your best friend and he was that other man. Love your industry and it retires you to the gutter. Love your dog and it bites you. Love your God and there is a flood.”
— from “Rice Wine”
“On his face, I saw our life die together, for I had killed every fish in his body and cut every vein in his heart.”
— from “Harana”
“We are transient and temporal.”
— from “Guernica and the Blue Star”
About Wilfrido D. Nolledo
Wilfrido D. Nolledo was born in Manila in 1933, and began writing at an early age, creating his first published work at the age of 14. He would go on to earn a Litt. B in Journalism degree at the University of Santo Tomas, where he met his wife Blanca.
Nolledo’s short stories garnered critical acclaim from various awarding bodies, including the Philippines Free Press Literary Awards and Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards. Versed in fiction, playwriting, and scriptwriting, many of his pieces were published across several notable publications like the Philippines Free Press from 1963 to 1966.
He later left the country to participate in one of the world’s most prestigious programs, the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, before assuming the position of fiction editor at The Iowa Review. His first and only novel But for the Lovers was published by E.P. Dutton in 1970, and two years later, he returned to the Philippines as a prolific writer in national magazines and film. He later moved to Los Angeles in 1990, before his passing in 2004.
“Described as ‘an icon’ of the old generation? Actually, Wilfrido, the humble man he had always been, would probably prefer being remembered as a writer who echoed truths in life for all seasons, for all generations of writers,” expresses his wife Blanca in her foreword.
Copies of “Canticles for Dark Lovers” will be available starting May 11, 2026. Readers may purchase copies of the book through the Exploding Galaxies website, Shopee, Lazada, and in bookstores around the Philippines.
Photos courtesy of Exploding Galaxies
Frequently Asked Questions
It’s the sixth title from Exploding Galaxies and its first short story collection, featuring 16 works by Filipino writer Wilfrido D. Nolledo, spanning 1955 to 1971.
The book brings together Nolledo’s most awarded stories, previously uncollected works, and an early version of But for the Lovers, alongside a new foreword by Blanca D. Nolledo.
Canticles for Dark Lovers will be available starting May 11, 2026 via the Exploding Galaxies website, Shopee, Lazada, and bookstores nationwide.
