SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA — Filipino-Australian author Kristyn Maslog-Levis re-imagines the classic Filipino tale, Ibong Adarna in her latest young adult novel, The Search for Adarna (Anvil Publishing).
The book follows Anna Waldorf-Ocampo who wants to get away from the scrutiny that comes with her famous name. She will do anything to avoid dealing with her ruthless older half sister, Elizabeth, although she gets along with her belittled other half sister, Olivia. Tragedy strikes when their father is felled by a mysterious illness that has no cure. The family’s only hope lies in a bird called Adarna, a mythical creature that can only be found in the Philippine jungle. The three sisters are each tasked to search for the elusive creature. Whoever retrieves it first will inherit their father’s billion-dollar empire, but they must hurry, or they will lose their father forever.
“I was inspired by the retelling of classic fairytales like Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast. But instead of using western tales, I wanted something with a Filipino flavor. The story of Adarna was one of my favourite stories as a child and so I thought, why not bring that story into the 21st century,” Levis said.
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Maslog-Levis is an author and marketing specialist based here in Sydney. She has over 15 years of local and international experience as journalist. Several of her works have been published in The New York Times and Al Jazeera. She worked as a TV reporter for ABS-CBN before finishing her master’s degree in communication under the ASEAN scholarship at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.
Maslog-Levis also writes a column in the MetroPost titled Dreams of Platypus.
She has self-published two children’s picture books on Amazon, titled The Dragon and The Lizard and We have it All. The Girl between Two Worlds and The Girl between Light and Dark were her first two novels in the Engkantasia series.
Hard copies will be available in selected National Bookstore branches by end of September. An e-book version will also be available in Kobo and Amazon.
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