Ninay

Ninay

Bookcover/title page for the original Spanish version of Ninay by Pedro A. Paterno.
Author	Pedro Alejandro Paterno
Original title	Nínay (costumbres filipinas)
Country	Spain and Philippines
Language	Spanish, English, and Tagalog
Genre	Cultural novel
Publisher	Imprenta de Fortanet (Madrid) and Limbagan Nang La Republika Kiotan Bilang 30
Publication date	1885, 1907, and 1908
Media type	Print (Hardback)
Pages	262

Nínay is the first novel authored by a native Filipino. Originally written in the Spanish language by Pedro Alejandro Paterno when he was twenty-three years old and while living in Spain in 1885, the novel was later translated into English in 1907 and into Tagalog in 1908. According to Dominador D. Buhain in his book A History of Publishing in the Philippines, being the first Filipino novel, Ninay marked the beginning of the awakening of national consciousness among the Filipino intelligentsia. Being a "largely cultural" novel, the narrative provides a "folkloristic tour" of the distinctive culture of the Philippines. Composed of 262 pages, the 1908 Tagalog version of the novel was published by the Limbagan Nang La Republika Kiotan Bilang 30 during the American period in Philippine history.

The novel explores the life and love story of the female protagonist named Ninay, a heartbroken young woman who died of cholera. Her heartbreak was due to her separation from her lover Carlos Mabagsic. Ninay's misfortune became harder to bear because of the loss of her parents. A pasiam, the novena for the dead, was being said and offered for the lifeless Ninay. Framed with this melancholic atmosphere of nine-day prayer for the departed, the novel opens up a succession of narratives that present "variations of unrequited love". The first condemned relationship was between Ninay and her lover Carlos Mabagsic. When Ninay was still alive, Mabagsic was falsely accused of being the leader of a rebellion. Mabagsic's accuser was Federico Silveyro, an entrepreneur from Portugal. Mabagsic went abroad. Upon his return, Mabagsic found out that Ninay confined herself in a convent. Mabagsic became a victim of cholera and died. Ninay also died of cholera. The other victims of the wickedness of the Portuguese Federico Silveyro were the couple named Loleng and Berto. Silveyro was the cause of Loleng's death. Berto avenged Loleng's death by killing Silveyro.

Ninay has been reviewed by literary critics such as Claude Schumacher, Bienvenido Lumbera, Cynthia Nograles Lumbera, and Resil Mojares. According to Schumacher (1997), Paterno's Ninay is a novel that is "mediocre worth" because of being "little more than a framework" or an outline interleaved with "scenes and customs" of life the Philippines. On the contrary, Lumbera and Lumbera described Ninay as a novel with Philippine placenames and Filipino characters but "foreign", in the sense that the "locales and […] characters" were "overly romanticized". Mojares, on the other hand, reiterated that the novel is "distinctively Filipino" and it is a work that Paterno created as a form of reply to Philippine national hero Jose Rizal's recommendation that his "expatriate fellows work together to produce" a compilation that would represent the Philippines to a larger audience outside the country. Apart from Mojares's description of Ninay as a tool to present Philippine society and culture to non-Filipino readers, Eugenio Matibag explained in his The Spirit of Ninay that Ninay is a politically tinged piece of literature because it informs the public that Spain made the Philippines the "obverse of what European civilization stood for", meaning the civilization of Europe, particularly Spain, is supposed to have been the promoter and implementor of equality of all peoples.