Rizal Without the Overcoat is a book by Filipino writer Ambeth Ocampo

Ambeth Ocampo

Ambeth R. Ocampo is a multi-awarded Filipino historian, academic, journalist, and author best known for his writings about Philippines' national hero José Rizal and for "Looking Back", his bi-weekly editorial page column in the Philippine Daily Inquirer...

, adapted from his "Looking Back" column in the Philippine Daily Globe from October 1987 to July 1990. These writings were attempts to "translate" José Rizal

José Rizal

José Protacio Rizal Mercado y Alonso Realonda , was a Filipino polymath, patriot and the most prominent advocate for reform in the Philippines during the Spanish colonial era. He is regarded as the foremost Filipino patriot and is listed as one of the national heroes of the Philippines by...

 and his historical context so that he could be better understood by a new generation—to present "a "new" Rizal that had been obscured by school and myth." In 1999, an expanded edition of the book was published to which was added an award-winning series of commentary on Rizal which Ocampo had written. His column by then had moved to the Philippine Daily Inquirer

Philippine Daily Inquirer

The Philippine Daily Inquirer, popularly known as the Inquirer, is the most widely read broadsheet newspaper in the Philippines, with a daily circulation of 260,000 copies. It is one of the Philippines' newspapers of record...

. The book is frequently used as a reference for college courses on the Life and Works of José Rizal, which is mandated by law (Republic Act 1425) as a required course for all college students. It won the 1990 National Book Award for the Essay.