THE WOMAN WHO HAD TWO NAVELS by Nick Joaquin

Nicomendes Joaquin

  Nick Joaquin, by name of Nicomedes Joaquin (born May 4, 1917, Paco, Manila, Phil.—died April 29, 2004, San Juan, Phil.), Filipino novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, and biographer whose works present the diverse heritage of the Filipino people.Joaquin was awarded a scholarship to the Dominican monastery in Hong Kong after publication of his essay “La Naval de Manila” (1943), a description of Manila’s fabled resistance to 17th-century Dutch invaders. After World War II he traveled to the United States, Mexico, and Spain, later serving as a cultural representative of the Philippines to Taiwan, Cuba, and China.Starting as a proofreader for the Philippines Free Press, Joaquin rose to contributing editor and essayist under the nom de plume “Quijano de Manila” (“Manila Old-Timer”). He was well known as a historian of the brief Golden Age of Spain in the Philippines, as a writer of short stories suffused with folk Roman Catholicism, as a playwright, and as a novelist.

"THE WOMAN WHO HAD TWO NAVELS"

This novel by Joaquin is a literary assessment of the influence of the past to the time encompassing events in the Philippines after World War II an examination of an assortment of legacy and heritage and the questions of how can an individual exercise free will and how to deal with the “shock” after experiencing “epiphanic recognition”.

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     The Woman Who Had Two Navels is a 1961 historical novel by Nick Joaquin, a National Artist for Literature and leading English-Language writer from the Philippines. It is considered a classic in Philippine Literature. It was the recipient of the first Harry Stone hill award. It tells the story of a Filipino elite woman who is hallucinating and is preoccupied with the notion that she has two navels or belly buttons in order to be treated as an extraordinary person.  This book is a fictional story of a Filipina woman who believes she has two navels. It is widely considered as a classic in Philippine literature. It is divided into 5 chapters: Paco, Macho, La Vidal, The Chinese Moon, and Doctor Monson.

Connie Escobar the lead female character, was described by literary critic Epifanio San Juan as a sufferer of her mother’s estrangement from a world where unconfident males take advantage of women by violating them or by venerating them. 

Macho Escobar- a man who had an affair with Connie’s mother, a past incident that serves as an “umbilical cord” or "umbilicus", a remnant connected to her present and future because of her refusal to leave the issue in the past. 

Manolo Vidal- is the embodiment of the Filipino nationalistic bourgeois who were once critical of the theocracy of the Spaniards but became transformed puppets and servants of these colonialists. 

Paco Texeira- was a survivor between the behaviors of the Monson and Vidal families, and also acted as Nick Joaquin’s “conscience”, an observer who could have penetrated the existing rituals and ruses. 

Concha Borromeo, she is the mother of Connie Escobar. Esteban Borromeo, he is the husband of Concha Borromeo. Father Tony is a priest, and the brother of Pepe Monson. Pepe Monson, horse Doctor and the brother of Father Tony. Doctor Monson, former rebel hiding in Hong Kong to avoid postwar trials.  Rita Lopez , the future wife of Paco Texeria and Business partner of Hellen Silva's painting shop. Hellen Silva, owner of a painting shop.



The Woman Who Had Two Navels is a many-layered, chaotic and less-than-prefect novel that taunts out universal paradoxes of truth and falsehood, illusion and reality, past and present by paralleling it to the characters and reader’s inner turmoil and puts it in the context of the Filipino’s search for identity. In Nick Joaquin’s view, we must look at the past with the consciousness need of engaging the present world in its own terms. The novel portrays a woman