The first Filipino novel, Pedro Paterno’s Ninay, along with his other works La Antigua and Los Itas, and a copy of Morga signed by Rizal. PHOTOS FROM LEON GALLERY
PERSONALLY, I can appreciate poetry but prefer reading long works in prose. But there was a time when everything was actually either recited in poetry or sung. I was always told that the first novel, published in 1605, was Miguel de Cervantes' El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quixote de La Mancha (The ingenious knight Don Quixote of La Mancha), but only because we are too focused on the West. The oldest novel actually appeared a thousand years ago in 11th-century Japan, The Tale of Genji, written by a woman Murasaki Shikibu.