Amira's Message: A Post-Pearl Harbor saga

At the height of WWII, in a town near the site of the epic Leyte Gulf War that threw American firepower in the Pacific against the might of the Japanese Imperial Army, the American Seabees build a big ship-repair yard and hospitals for the wounded, then huge parking lot for the war materials and a huge airfield to test run for dropping the atomic bombs. But the Americans soon vanished.

Amira remarries and encounters no shortage of detractors from the island's forces to thank and memorialize the American liberation, while trying to get a piece of the economic pie, gathering a collection of the artifacts of war, thus putting her mettle to a test in the midst of nationalists' allusions to a quid pro quo in the parity rights by the liberators, putting her squarely at the opposite end.

The author started with literary stint in a school publication, later writing for a newspaper and magazine. Ben Cabanatan had been senior editor of The Carolinian, official publication of the University of San Carlos, took post-graduate studies at the University of the Philippines-Cebu, Cebu City, Philippines.

With training in accountancy, he became a certified public accountant, worked in a commercial bank, then a branch of a British trading company.

In the US he joined a major stock brokerage/investment bank. He lives in New York.