Los Pájaros de Fuego (in English, "The Birds of Fire") is a Spanish-language novel by the Filipino Hispanophone author Jesús Balmori. It was the last of three known novels he wrote—he finished it during World War II and died a few years later in 1948—but it was not published in his lifetime or long after. Only in 2010 did it finally get published by the Manila chapter of the Instituto Cervantes foundation, and primarily for archival rather than consumer use, and only in early 2022 did it finally get a full English translation by Dulzorada Press through Robert S. Rudder and Ignacio López-Calvo.
It depicts the Robleses, an Old Money colonial aristocratic family whose idyllic lives in Philippine colonial capital Manila, in the "slackening" shadow of U.S. colonial rule, are shockingly disrupted by World War II and the Japanese occupation. The titular pájaros de fuego ("birds of fire"), naturally, refers to Japanese Zero fighter planes.
Compare A Portrait of the Artist as Filipino, a (mostly) English-language play by Filipino National Artist for Literature Nick Joaquin, which similarly touches on Manila-based elites dealing with the portent of World War II.
Contains examples of the following tropes:
- During the War: World War II, specifically the Japanese occupation of the American Philippines.
- Ethnic Menial Labor: The Robleses employ Japanese gardeners who form part of the invading Japanese imperial vanguard.
- Footnote Fever: The 2010 Instituto Cervantes edition is primarily for archival and research purposes, and naturally contains a lot of these. It even has a lot of supplemental material on Balmori's life and other works and writings (all in Spanish, of course).
- Genteel Interbellum Setting: The very tail-end of it, because the Japanese quickly invade in short order.
- Gratuitous Japanese: Considerably peppered with Japanese terms and phrases, expected given Don Lino's characterisation as, effectively, a weeaboo.
- The Hero Dies: Most of the Robles family and in-laws end up dying, except for Don Ramon (Don Lino's brother), and in-law Marta (Don Lino's son Fernando's fiancée). To be fair, this was During the War.
- Herr Doktor: The German Dr Fritz von Kauffman, one of Dr Sandoval's buddies, also a physician.
- The Ingenue: Natalia Robles, Don Lino's daughter.
- Missing Mom: Don Lino's wife, the mother of his children Natalia and Fernando, has died some time back, before the events of the novel.
- Nerd Glasses: Dr Sandoval, Natalia's boyfriend, has huge shell-rimmed glasses that are described as resembling car headlights.
- Occidental Otaku: Don Lino Robles, whilst technically a Filipino and therefore ethnically Asian (mostly?), is raised in a very Old-World, Hispanic/European (and therefore Western) elite culture, and yet in this late period he takes avidly to Japanese cultures and customs, and even loves a Japanese woman. This bites him hard in the ass when the Japanese invaders start attacking and abusing his family.
- Old Money: The Robleses are this, their landed wealth having kept them in power for several generations.
- Nouveau Riche: In stark contrast, Natalia's boyfriend Dr Sandoval, a medical doctor by profession with multiple degrees.
