“In A Pig Was Once Killed in Our Garage, Martin Villanueva bravely forges and re-forges a self and in the process creates an ars poetica but only in order to dismantle it, through a relentless scrutiny of the many events, actions, transformations, insults, threats, limitations, and possibilities the self has traversed. Villanueva manages to confront in this book deeply personal and social histories—the forces that have brought together and broken apart families, relationships, bodies, and spirits—but also anomalies and controversies in Philippine writing, issues of language and representation, and subjectivity. The tone sometimes takes an academic turn; the entire work remains unapologetically intellectual and personal, sustained by prose that is provocative and evocative, brutal and exquisite.”

—Daryll Delgado, author of After the Body Displaces Water