Bro. Karl Gaspar, CSsR is a Mindanawon Redemptorist brother, former political detainee and cultural worker described by one writer as “perhaps the most prolific and knowledgeable of Mindanao playwrights.” Manobo Dreams in Arakan is based on his doctoral dissertation at the University of the Philippines-Diliman.The book focuses on a lumad or indigenous cultural community in Mindanao, the Manobos, who live in the Arakan Valley of North Cotabato. Bro. Gaspar analyzes the experience of oppression and struggle of the Manobos to keep their homeland using the German philosopher Jurgen Habermas’ theory of communicative action.