Considered a long lost Filipino classic, Wilfrido D. Nolledo's novel, But for the Lovers finally comes home to the Philippines more than 50 years after its initial publication in the United States in 1970 with the new Philippine edition by Exploding Galaxies.

In But for the Lovers, Hidalgo de Anuncio, a jaded Spanish vaudevillian brings home to Ojos Verdes a girl lost in the streets of Japanese-occupied Manila. With his attendant Molave Amoran—wistful guitarist and thief—the payaso guides his lost crew through the startling grotesqueries and tragedies inside a devastated Manila.

Literary critic and writer Caroline Hau describes the book as a “comic but fraught allegory of Spanish, American, and Japanese imperial contest over the Filipino ‘alma’ (soul).”