Manila was a long time ago : stories / A.A. Patawaran art by Love Marie Ongpauco-Escudero.

Sixteen stories, sixteen cities... and the Filipino in all of them. Intriguing and curious, the characters in each of the stories in Manila Was a Long Time Ago represent the best and the worst of us, set in places we dream of-the streets of Berlin lined with historically mismatched buildings, in the idylls of end-of-fall Quebec, on ultra luxurious Cape Yamu in Phuket, in romantic Paris, in the port town of Ahus, in glittering New York on New Year's Eve, among the monuments to millennia past in Athens. Via the intersections between fact and fiction, AA Patawaran takes you on a tour of some of the world's most charming cities colored by the contemplations of Filipinos lost there with a lingering longing or aversion for home. Though it's only one of sixteen settings, Manila looms over like a shadow or shines like a ray of light on the characters. Manila was A Long Time Ago is delightfully honest and unapologetically real. It takes you on a dizzying romp across the globe, through the eyes of Filipino protagonists long estranged from home, only to take you back where it all started: Manila, a city you either love or hate, or love and hate, but one that never leaves you indifferent.