The Afterlives of the Noli me tángere

Filipinos rarely read the Noli me tángere in the original Spanish, but it lives on in translation, a second life or afterlife, as Walter Benjamin puts it. During the American period, the first English translation, An Eagle Flight, based on the first French translation in 1899, was published in 1900. The second English translation, entitled Friars and Filipinos, appeared in 1902, and it was made by Frank Ernest Gannett, then secretary to Jacob Schurman, chair of the First Philippine Commission. Politics intruded in the translations; the omissions and additions recreated a novel suited to the American reader who wanted to gain information about the new colony. Only after the institution of the public school system were Filipinos expected to read the novel in its English translation.