Eating Fire and Drinking Water

Clara Perez is a reporter on a small South Seas island, an orphan raised by nuns whose origins are shrouded in mystery. Brimming with idealistic ambition, she's grown weary of the trivial assignments handed to her at the daily paper and hungry to write something of substance.

Her chance comes when the little street of Calle de Leon bursts into flames after a student demonstration and a soldier kills an unarmed man. Rushing to cover the tragedy, Clara stumbles into another, far more personal one — remarkable truths about the past that has silently pursued her all her life. As her missing history unfolds against a nation wracked by revolution and the dark years of Martial Law, Arlene J. Chai weaves a multilayered novel — at once political and intimate — about loyalty, commitment, and the search for truth in the Philippines under dictatorship.