"Small is great if smallness is taken as a challenge."

 In 1996, on the occasion of the centenary of Jose Rizal's death, the esteemed Filipino writer Nick Joaquin wrote the biography of the country's premier national hero. Relying foremost on Rizal's own journals and his works, Joaquin's Rizal brings forth Rizal's humanity his Fear ,his insecurities, his influences, and the fortitude that ultimately leads him to become, as Joaquin calls him, "the grandest of Filipinos."

In language distinctly Joaquin, Rizal's life and works are contextualized, coaxing the reader to understand Rizal– the man in conflict in the context of a country in turmoil, "Rizal's career illustrates the theory of challenge and response as the secret of progress. He started out timid and insecure he ended up bold and confident. Rizal soared because his every response over shot the challenge. With each achievement, whether in science or letters or scholarship, headed one more cubit to his stature, until he could no longer decry himself as little."

This new edition of Joaquin's Rizal in Saga: A Life for Student Fans, introduced and annotated by Ambeth R. Ocampo, the country's foremost public historian and authority on Jose Rizal, contains new photographs from various sources as well as photographs from Ocampo's collection to bring Rizal the person and the saga that was his life even closer to new student fans.