How Jennilee Austria-Bonifacio translated decades of work with Filipino newcomers into powerful fiction

Jennilee Austria-Bonifacio's first book,Reuniting With Strangers, is a novel-in-stories about how the Filipino-Canadian diaspora experiences family reunification. It follows characters from a caregiver raising her employer's children while missing her own in the Philippines, to an aging musician worried his children have left him behind for new lives in Canada. The nine stories take readers from Montreal to Manila back. Each is somehow connected to Monolith, a non-verbal five-year-old boy.

Austria-Bonifacio is a Filipina-Canadian author whose stories appear in the anthologies Changing the Face of Canadian Literature and Magdaragat: An Anthology of Filipino-Canadian Writing. She was a finalist for the Jim Wong-Chu Emerging Authors Award and was longlisted for the 2022 CBC Short Story Prize for Her Life's Work.She lives in Toronto.

The 2024 CBC Short Story Prize is now open!The winner will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts, have the opportunity to attend a two-week writing residency at The Banff Centre, and have their work published on CBC Books.

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CBC Books spoke to Austria-Bonifacio about how she wrote Reuniting With Strangers.

Inspired by a real boy

"I went to a school as a settlement worker a long time ago, and the teachers were saying, 'We wish you were here earlier.There was this family that really needed your help, but they've moved on to another school.'

"They said he was upset to the point where at nighttime, he would get quite violent with herand she would call the police to restrain him. I thought to myself, "How do you get to this point where you're calling the police on a five-year-old boy?" Second, "Why is he so angry? Is it behavioural or is it something else?"

"This was in my head for years, so that's why Monolith's story ends up in all the other stories. He impacts a lot of change and he appears at moments of change in people's narratives."

This was in my head for years, so that's why Monolith's story ends up in all the other stories.- Jennilee Austria-Bonifacio

On-the-ground research

"I wrote this during thepandemic.There are a lot of places in the book I wasn't able to go to until after the book was written. My publisher had the book in their handsand I said to them, "I'm going to go to the Philippines for Christmas and New Year's, and a lot of this is going to change after I come back." They were like, "Do what you need to do."

"It was so funny because everything is good with my agent and my publisherand I'm still like, "I'm going to redo this because I need to be on the ground." Finally, with restrictions lifting, I was able to visit those places that I'd been scouring for with Google Street View and TripAdvisor."

Everything is good with my agent and my publisherand I'm still like, 'I'm going to redo this because I need to be on the ground.'- Jennilee Austria-Bonifacio

Balancing writing and other work

"I'm one of those writers whose brain lights up between midnight and two in the morning. Things are happening, things are sparking. I wish I wasn't like that because I really miss sleeping.

"At the same time, I'm really glad that I have a job that's 10 to 6, and 10 a.m.is not a big ask to wake up. I get to work from home four days a week, so that's not so bad either.

"I work artist hours. It hurts my brain sometimes, but you do what you do out of passion. Sometimes even if you try to go to bed early, your brain won't let you.

"I know some writers say, "I have to write two hours a day or else it's not OK." But if I don't write that day, that's fine. Sometimes you're in a reading phase or a research-only phase. I'm not going to strap myself to a chair. You have to be really kind to yourself, especially when you're writing heavy things."

The value of a Filipino writing community

"When I first started my writing journey, I hardly knew any Filipino writers. You really feel like you're alone on an island. The more that I progressed in my writing journey, the more I started to find all these Filipino writers, and I thought, 'Thank goodness.'It's so nice to have people to bounce things off of.

I wanted people to understand that writing this book was a communal effort because it can be so hard on your own.- Jennilee Austria-Bonifacio

"For my book launch, before I even got on stage and talked about Reuniting With Strangers, I really wanted five members of Pluma a Filipino-Canadian writing collective to be on stage to present their own work. I wanted people to understand that writing this book was a communal effort because it can be so hard on your own.

When I finally found these people and I'm still finding those people today it's so powerful."

Jennilee Austria-Bonifacio's comments have been edited for length and clarity.