From "Can you Phil Lit?" - A mini-review by Ramil Digal Gulle

After the Body Displaces Water by Daryll Delgado (University of Santo Tomas Publishing House) is a short story collection that can be considered as feminist writing—but without the heavy-handed, blunt-object-to-the-head politics. The main character in most of Delgado’s stories is a woman. These women find themselves in rather interesting situations. You will feel newly-washed after reading this book—with a hint of brine on your skin. In “Conversation,” the two main characters are lovers, a man and a woman, who remain nameless throughout the story. They’re both quite drunk. The man, in fact, is carrying empty bottles of soda and brandy in a plastic bag. Then the woman essentially flips out. Clearly she has issues. Is it because she wants to have kids and, for some reason, they don’t? Another story I liked (perhaps my favorite in the collection) is “In remission”, about a woman who decides to get away from everyone and everything—her well-paying career, her friends, her family—after she’s diagnosed with terminal cancer. However, a one-night stand with a waiter has consequences that make her re-think her previous resolve to die alone. Delgado’s “Summer with scouts, pirates and pregnant rats” is a joyride through the main character’s nostalgia for her lost youth. There’s a scene where she has rather desultory sex with her boyfriend—she’s distracted because she’s worried about a big, disgusting rat loose in the house. Delgado’s prose comes through as clearly as a bell in a Zen monastery, and she knows how to create scenes and details that pack emotional truth. I thoroughly enjoyed this collection, especially those parts in her stories where the sense of time gets fuzzy and (seemingly) breaks down, turning the narratives into stranger stuff approaching the vagaries—and the sensuous intimacies—of memory. (http://www.interaksyon.com/lifestyle/can-you-phil-lit)