Smaller and Smaller Circles

Smaller and Smaller Circles is a mystery novel by Filipino novelist F. H. Batacan. It won the Carlos Palanca Grand Prize for the English Novel in 1999.^[1] It also won the National Book Award 2002 and Madrigal-Gonzalez Award 2003.

The book was the first Filipino crime novel.^[1] This novel was published in 2002 by the University of the Philippines Press as one of the first new fiction works they had selected.^[1] Although most Filipino English-language fiction works garner a single print run of only 1,000 copies,^[1] Smaller and Smaller Circles was reprinted four times, for a total of 6,000 copies.^[2]

Plot summary

Its main protagonists are Gus Saenz and Jerome Lucero, Jesuit priests who also perform forensic work. The mystery revolves around the murders of young boys in a poor region of Payatas, Philippines.

Themes

In an unusual twist on the crime fiction stereotype, readers know the identity of the criminal.^[3]

A recurring theme in the novel is the inefficiency of the National Bureau of Investigation. Gus and Jerome, together with their ally reporter Joanna Bonifacio, take matters into their own hands and solve the mystery of the serial killings in Payatas.

References

Sources

• Hidalgo, Cristina Pantoja (2006), Over a Cup of Ginger Tea: Conversations on the Literary Narratives of Filipino Women, University of the Philippines Press, ISBN 978-971-542-524-7