‘Darna & Other Idols’ off the press

The latest collection of profiles by Marra PL. Lanot, “Darna & Other Idols,” published by Anvil, is now off the press.

Among the personalities Lanot has written about for this book are actors Marian Rivera, Gina Alajar, Rosanna Roces, Lucy Torres-Gomez and Richard Gomez, Ryan Agoncillo, Ali Sotto, Vilma Santos and husband Senator Ralph Recto; composer Ryan Cayabyab; late activist Maita Gomez; writers Kerima Polotan, Edith Tiempo and Lualhati Bautista, and human rights lawyers Bobby Tañada and Rene Saguisag.

As in Lanot’s previous collections of profiles, the book showcases Lanot’s interest in people from various fields such as politics, sports and the arts.

Said fictionist, columnist and educator Butch Dalisay: “We Filipinos are inveterate, incurable gossips, and we appreciate any tidbit of information we can get about the people we admire (or sometimes loathe), but Marra PL. Lanot’s ‘Darna & Other Idols’ goes well beyond dispensing juicy factoids. In these profiles—an art mastered by the late Nick Joaquin—Lanot locates her subjects in a context often missed or neglected by entertainment and political journalism. They emerge fallible, noble, capricious, generous, driven and distracted—in other words, thoroughly human.”

Sheila Coronel, a respected investigative reporter and Ramon Magsaysay Awardee for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts, further noted that “the engaging profiles in this book provide rare glimpses into the lives of some of the most interesting individuals to have walked the stage of Philippine public life. Whether she’s writing about Vilma Santos or Ryan Cayabyab, Rosanna Roces or Rene Saguisag, Marra PL. Lanot tells it like it is. Through these essays, these people come alive—in human dimension, not nobler or more colorful, but as they really are.”

Marra PL. Lanot writes poetry, creative nonfiction and journalistic pieces in Filipino, English and, occasionally, in Spanish. Her works have been anthologized in the Philippines and other countries, and have been translated into several languages.

She also writes teleplays and video scripts, which have been produced and publicly screened. She graduated from the University of the Philippines with an AB major in English degree. She has been an official delegate to international writers’ and women’s conferences.