Hagedorn, Jessica

Jessica Hagedorn is a Philippine-born American novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, screenwriter, and editor. She is best-known for writing fiction and poetry depicting the consequences of Spanish and US colonialisms in the Philippines and among Philippine immigrants. Major themes in her work include the hybrid culture and “colonial mentality” of Philippine people, blurring the lines between fact and fiction, Hollywood fantasies and Third World realities, political corruption and class society, colonialism and Catholicism, and the innocence and exploitation of the poor. Hagedorn's best-known works include Dangerous Music (1975), a volume of stories and poems about her youth in the Philippines and life as an immigrant in America; Pet Food and Tropical Apparitions (1981), a collection of vignettes and poems that won the American Book Award; Dogeaters (1990), her debut novel nominated for the National Book Award about social disorder and corruption in modern Philippine society; Danger and Beauty (1993), a volume that combines the poetry and prose from her two previous collections; The Gangster of Love (1996), a narrative about a Philippine immigrant struggling to succeed as a rock ‘n’ roll musician; and Dream Jungle (2003a), a novel that associates the discovery of a lost tribe of natives in Mindanao with the filming of a Hollywood Vietnam War movie in the Philippines.