The three novels in English that won in the Centennial Literary Contest are very different in their approaches to imagining the nation. And yet, in some of the most important aspects of constructing a narrative of the nation, they stand in very much the same position in relation to its colonial experience. The importance of narratives in understanding current attitudes about the Philippine experience makes it imperative that these three valorized novels are studied closely and as a set. This paper argues that these novels fail to liberate for they adopt a cavalier attitude towards history and fall prey to the cultural logic of late capitalism.

Keywords: narrative, (post)colonial literature, Philippine history, state, late capitalism, centennial novels