THE ARHAT SON: A NOVEL
Charlson Ong
A thriller revolving around the identity of a young man who shows up claiming to be a Chinese-Filipino business magnate’s illegitimate son.
Divine intervention or malicious human machination?
Securing a worthy successor is a must for any magnate. Head of the Aloysius Ong Group of Companies (AOGC), Ignatius Ong Sr. has lost both his favorite sons. Without a competent heir for his business empire, both he and the AOGC were in disarray. As if by chance, a man named Simon who claims to be his son from an affair he had in China, enters the Ongs’ lives. Ignatius Sr. believes that Simon’s arrival is a divine sign–that he’s meant to inherit it all.
His remaining legitimate heir and eldest son, Iggy, whose talents and passions are for literature and film, is suspicious. With his former writing student Vanessa and his family’s mysterious security aide Robles, he attempts to unravel the truth.
978-971-828-147-5
Category: Fiction/Cultural Heritage
Language: English
Copyright Year: 2025
Weight & Dimensions: 0.22 kg, 5” x 8”
Pages: 240
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Charlson Ong is a writer, film producer, and director. He has won the Philippine National Book Award for both short fiction and novel. He has four short story collections: Men of the East and Other Stories (Kalikasan Press, 1990); Woman of Amkaw and Other Stories (Anvil, 1992); Conversion and Other Fictions (Anvil, 1996); and Of that Other Country We Now Speak and Other Stories (University of the Philippines Press, 2016). He has four novels: An Embarrassment of Riches (Philippine Cen-tennial Commission, 2000); Banyaga, A Song of War (Anvil, 2006); Blue Angel/ White Shadow (UST Publishing House, 2010); and White Lady, Black Christ (Milflores Publishing, 2021). He is the writer, co-producer, and director of the acclaimed film Tanabata’s Wife, which won him Best Picture in the Tofarm Film Festival in 2018 and Best Adapted Screenplay for 2019 at the Filipino Academy of Movie Arts and Sciences (FAMAS). In 2024, his complete short stories were compiled and published as a book titled Sojourner, Settler, Seer: The Complete Stories of Charlson Ong (Milflores Publishing, 2024).