CITY OF MANILA SLASHES DAN BROWN OVER DEPECTION OF CITY IN NEW NOVEL

OLIVER FLINT/ OLLIE’s WORLD OF WRITING

MANILA- Dan Brown, author of New York Times #1 best seller “The Da Vinci Code” is receiving some criticism from the government of Manila about the way he portrayed the Pilipino city in his newest book, Inferno.

In Brown’s most recent book, Inferno, Symbolist Robert Langdon discovers the secret underground of one of Italy’s biggest cities, Florence. On his way, Langdon meets Doctor Sienna Brooks who serves as his sidekick.  She explains to Langdon that when she was younger, she had done time in Manila as a doctor abroad. Sienna then goes on to explain “not only were there the wails of crying babies and the stench of human excrement" in the Filipino capital but also "six-hour traffic jams, suffocating pollution, and a horrifying sex trade, whose workers consisted primarily of young children". She feels as if she had "run through the gates of hell".

This sparked outrage within the tourism office of Manila stating Brown’s portrayal of Manila was an “Inaccurate portrayal of our beloved metropolis”

Brown responded by saying, “It is a work of fiction. Nothing inside the covers should be taken that seriously, I am sorry if I offended anyone”.

This is not the first time Manila has been disparaged. Manila has been used in countless Hollywood films including “The Bourne Legacy” staring Jeremy Renner. In the film, Aaron Cross must travel to Manila. When he arrives, Arron experiences many issues Brown mentions in his book, including a nasty sex trade and unbearable pollution.

Manila recently invested a great amount of tax money into their tourism sector. Along with this investment came with a complete revamp of their tourism sector and their new tagline “It’s more fun in the Philippines”.

With all the negative feedback towards Manila, you’d think that the Tourism sector would be greatly impacted. Well believe it or not, Manila recorded one of the country’s best years for foreign tourism in 2012 with 4,272,811forign travellers entering the Southeast Asian country.

Although Inferno slashes the City of Manila, the book sold over a 1000 copies in the city alone with almost a quarter of a million being sold all over the world in the first week.  

Inferno now stands at the top of the New York Times Bestseller List.
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