I Was the President's Mistress!!

“Brilliant . . . Miguel Syjuco is his country’s most original and unflinching literary voice.” —Salman Rushdie

“It’s a rare novel that leaves you reeling simultaneously with admiration, exhaustion, amazement at its author’s reach and skill, and desolation at the world it spreads out before you . . . [A] raging protest of a book.” —James Lasdun, The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice)

From Miguel Syjuco, the winner of the Man Asian Literary Prize for Ilustrado, I Was the President''s Mistress!! is an unflinching satire about power, corruption, sex, and all the other topics you were told never to discuss in polite company.

How much would you sacrifice for what you believe?
Is what you believe even true?
And what if you secretly recorded the crimes of your once-trusted lover—who also happens to be the president?

For Vita Nova, introverted megastar, such a conundrum could ruin everything. All she ever wished for was a quiet life as the Philippines’ most-liked influencer, famous for her viral dance hit, the Mr. Sexy-Sexy—yet now somehow she’s headlining a rollicking impeachment and battle royal for power.

In these previously unreleased transcripts, collected by the ghostwriter of her tell-all memoir, Vita rips the bodice of society to bare her own heaving story. But some of her former lovers tell it differently, asking us: “Who’s more sinful, the seduced or the seductress?”

You are cordially invited to this year’s biggest scandal. Will Vita prevail? Will she even survive?

In his signature style—playful, provocative, hilarious, insightful—Miguel Syjuco animates thirteen indelible voices in this dizzying tale of democracy in peril. But this isn’t a book about the Philippines; it’s about a society uncannily like yours.

I Was the President’s Mistress!! is both an indictment of the violent potential of language and an electrifying defense of free speech. Come, confront today’s last taboos and hurtle headlong into love, sex, ambition, politics, faith—and the war over who will tell the stories the world will know as truth.