[4] Composed of 262 pages, the 1908 Tagalog version of the novel was published by the Limbagan Nang La Republika Kiotan Bilang 30 during the American period in Philippine history.

[5] The novel explores the life and love story of the female protagonist named Ninay, a heartbroken young woman who died of cholera.

Framed with this melancholic atmosphere of nine-day prayer for the departed, the novel opens up a succession of narratives that present "variations of unrequited love".

According to Schumacher (1997), Paterno's Ninay is a novel that is "mediocre worth" because of being "little more than a framework" or an outline interleaved with "scenes and customs" of life the Philippines.

Mojares, on the other hand, reiterated that the novel is "distinctively Filipino" and it is a work that Paterno created as a form of reply to Philippine national hero Jose Rizal's recommendation that his "expatriate fellows work together to produce" a compilation that would represent the Philippines to a larger audience outside the country.

Being such, Lifshey further described Ninay as a landmark text, an artifact that was deterritorialized and is fundamentally transnational because the novel is both Asian and European.

[2] Apart from being a window to the national customs of the Philippines, Ninay is a historia crítica or "critical history", a mode of writing based on historical documentation or historiography wherein Paterno attempted to confirm the Filipinos' claim and assertion of having a civilized status and civilization that existed prior to the arrival of the Spanish explorers in the Philippine archipelago, and to defend the Filipinos' fundamental resemblance to other peoples and the universality of the Philippine culture and customs.

[1] Although published in Madrid Spain while the Philippines was still a Spanish colony, Ninay was conceived and written by an author who considered himself as a true Filipino.

[7] The characters in Ninay is a mixture of native Filipinos (known then as indios) and peninsulares (Spaniards born in Spain), thus - in a way - a community of mestizos (half-breeds) with a hybrid culture.

[1] Ninay, the character, was adapted and transformed into a doll of the same name by Patis Tesoro, a well known Filipino fashion designer who utilizes indigenous materials such as cloths made from pineapple and abaca fibers.