Region IV Authors
1. N. V. M. Gonzalez
Néstor Vicente Madali González (September 8, 1915-November 28, 1999) was a Filipino writer.
Biography
He was born on 8 September 1915 in Romblon, Philippines.[1] González, however,
was raised in Mansalay, a southern
town of the Philippine province of Oriental Mindoro. González
was a son of a school supervisor and a teacher. As a teenager, he helped his
father by delivering meat door-to-door across provincial villages and
municipalities. González was also a musician. He played the violin and even
made four guitars by hand. He earned his first peso by playing the violin
during a Chinese funeral in Romblon. González attended
Mindoro High School (now Jose J. Leido Jr. Memorial National
High School) from 1927 to 1930. González attended college at National University (Manila) but he was
unable to finish his undergraduate degree. While in Manila, González wrote for
the Philippine Graphic and later edited for the Evening News Magazine
and Manila Chronicle. His first published essay appeared in the Philippine
Graphic and his first poem in Poetry in 1934. González made his mark
in the Philippine writing community as a member of the Board of Advisers of Likhaan:
the University of the Philippines Creative Writing Center, founding editor
of The Diliman Review and as the first president of the Philippine
Writers' Association. González attended creative writing classes under Wallace Stegner and Katherine
Anne Porter at Stanford
University. In 1950, González returned to the Philippines and taught
at the University
of Santo Tomas, the Philippine
Women's University and the University
of the Philippines (U.P.). At U.P., González was only one of two faculty
members accepted to teach in the university without holding a degree. On the
basis of his literary publications and distinctions, González later taught at
the University of California, Santa Barbara, California State University, Hayward, the University
of Washington, the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of California, Berkeley.
.
On 14April 1987, the University
of the Philippines conferred on N.V.M. González the degree of Doctor of
Humane Letters, honoris causa, "For his creative genius in
shaping the Philippine short story and novel, and making a new clearing within
the English idiom and tradition on which he established an authentic
vocabulary, ...For his insightful criticism by which he advanced the literary
tradition of the Filipino and enriched the vocation for all writers of the
present generation...For his visions and auguries by which he gave the Filipino
sense and sensibility a profound and unmistakable script read and reread
throughout the international community of letters..."
N.V.M. González was proclaimed National Artist of the
Philippines in 1997. He died on 28 November 1999 in Quezon City, Philippines
at the age of 84. As a National Artist, Gonzalez was honored with a state
funeral at the Libingan ng mga Bayani.
Works
The works of Gonzalez have been published in Filipino, English, Chinese,
German, Russian and Indonesian language.
Novels[
- The Winds of April (1941)
- A Season of Grace (1956)
- The Bamboo Dancers (1988)
2. Jose P. Rizal
José Protasio Rizal Mercado y Alonso
Realonda (June 19, 1861 – December 30, 1896), was a Filipino nationalist, writer[8] and reformist. He is widely
considered the greatest national
hero of the Philippines.[9] He was the author
of Noli Me Tángere, El Filibusterismo and a number of poems and essays.
He was executed on December 30, 1896.REGION IV
Rizal was a 5th-generation patrilineal descendant of
Domingo Lam-co traditional
Chinese: 柯儀南; simplified
Chinese: 柯仪南; pinyin: Kē Yínán; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Kho
Gî-lâm, a Chinese immigrant entrepreneur who sailed to the Philippines from Jinjiang, Quanzhou in the mid-17th
century.[10] Lam-co
married Inez de la Rosa, a Sangley of Luzon. José
Rizal also had Spanish and Japanese ancestors. His grandfather and father of
Teodora was a half Spaniard engineer named Lorenzo Alberto Alonzo.[12] His
maternal great-great-grandfather was Eugenio Ursua, a descendant of Japanese
settlers.
In 1849, then Governor-General of the Philippines Narciso
Clavería, issued a Decree by which native Filipino and immigrant
families were to adopt Spanish surnames from a list
of Spanish family names. Although the Chino Mestizos were allowed to hold on to
their Chinese surnames, Lam-co changed his surname to the Spanish
"Mercado" (market), possibly to indicate their Chinese
merchant roots. José's father Francisco[13] adopted the surname
"Rizal" (originally Ricial,[14] the
green of young growth or green fields), which was suggested to him
by a provincial governor, or as José had described him, "a friend of the family".
However, the name change caused confusion in the business affairs of Francisco,
most of which were begun under the old name. After a few years, he settled on
the name "Rizal Mercado" as a compromise, but usually just used the
original surname "Mercado".
Birth and early childhood
Jose Rizal was born to a wealthy family in Calamba, Laguna and was the seventh
of eleven children. He was born on June 19, 1861 to Francisco Engracio Rizal
Mercado y Alejandro (1818–1897)[1][13] and Teodora
Morales Alonso y Quintos (1827-1911); whose family later changed their surname
to "Realonda"[15] His parents
were prosperous farmers who were granted lease of a hacienda and an accompanying
rice farm by the Dominicans. Rizal was
the seventh child of their eleven children namely: Saturina (Neneng)
(1850–1913), Paciano
(1851–1930), Narcisa (Sisa) (1852–1939), Olympia (1855–1887), Lucia
(1857–1919), María (Biang) (1859–1945), José Protasio (1861–1896), Concepción
(Concha) (1862–1865), Josefa (Panggoy) (1865–1945), Trinidad (Trining)
(1868–1951) and Soledad (Choleng) (1870–1929).
Upon enrolling at the Ateneo Municipal de Manila, José
dropped the last three names that make up his full name, on the advice of his
brother, Paciano
Rizal, and the Rizal Mercado family, thus rendering his name as "José Protasio
Rizal". Of this, Rizal writes: "My family never paid much
attention [to our second surname Rizal], but now I had to use it, thus giving
me the appearance of an illegitimate child!"[16] This was to
enable him to travel freely and disassociate him from his brother, who had
gained notoriety with his earlier links to Gomburza. From early
childhood, José and Paciano were
already advancing unheard-of political ideas of freedom and individual rights
which infuriated the authorities.[note 1][note 2] Despite the
name change, José, as "Rizal" soon distinguished himself in poetry
writing contests, impressing his professors with his facility with Castilian
and other foreign languages, and later, in writing essays that were critical of
the Spanish historical accounts of the pre-colonial Philippine societies.
Indeed, by 1891, the year he finished his El filibusterismo, this
second surname had become so well known that, as he writes to another friend, "All
my family now carry the name Rizal instead of Mercado because the name Rizal
means persecution! Good! I too want to join them and be worthy of this family
name...".[16]
Education
Rizal, 11 years old, a student at the Ateneo Municipal de
Manila.
Rizal first studied under Justiniano Aquino Cruz in Biñan, Laguna before he
was sent to Manila. As to his father's
request, he took the entrance examination in Colegio
de San Juan de Letran and studied there for almost three months. The Dominican
friars asked him to transfer to another school due to his radical and bold
questions.[18]
He then enrolled at the Ateneo
Municipal de Manila and graduated as one of the nine students in his class
declared sobresaliente or outstanding. He continued his education at the
Ateneo Municipal de Manila to obtain a land surveyor and assessor's degree, and
at the same time at the University
of Santo Tomas where he did take up a preparatory course in law.[19] Upon
learning that his mother was going blind, he decided to switch to medicine at
the medical school of Santo
Tomas specializing later in ophthalmology.
Works and Writings
Jose Rizal wrote mostly in Spanish, the then lingua franca of
scholars, though some of his letters (for example Sa Mga Kababaihang Taga
Malolos) were written in Tagalog. His works has since been translated into
a number of languages including Tagalog and English.
Novels and essays
- Noli Me Tángere, novel, 1887 (literally Latin for 'touch me
not', from John 20:17)[43]
- El
Filibusterismo, (novel, 1891), sequel to Noli Me Tángere
- Adiós,
Patria Adorada", poem, 1897 (literally "Farewell, Beloved
Fatherland" )
- Alin
Mang Lahi” (“Whate’er the Race”), a Kundiman
attributed to Dr. José Rizal[44]
- The
Friars and the Filipinos (Unfinished)
- Toast
to Juan Luna and Felix Hidalgo (Speech, 1884), given at Restaurante
Ingles, Madrid
- The
Diaries of José Rizal
- Rizal's
Letters is a compendium of Dr. Jose Rizal's letters to his family
members, Blumentritt, Fr. Pablo Pastells and other reformers
- "Come
se gobiernan las Filipinas" (Governing the Philippine islands)
- Filipinas
dentro de cien años essay, 1889-90 (The Philippines a Century Hence)
- La
Indolencia de los Filipinos, essay, 1890 (The indolence of Filipinos)
[45]
- Makamisa
unfinished novel
- Sa Mga
Kababaihang Taga Malolos, essay, 1889, To the Young Women of Malolos
- Annotations
to Antonio de Moragas, Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas (essay, 1889,
Events in the Philippine Islands)
"Mi último adiós"
The poem is more aptly titled, "Adiós, Patria
Adorada" (literally "Farewell, Beloved Fatherland"),
by virtue of logic and literary tradition, the words coming from the first line
of the poem itself. It first appeared in print not in Manila but in Hong Kong
in 1897, when a copy of the poem and an accompanying photograph came to J. P.
Braga who decided to publish it in a monthly journal he edited. There was a
delay when Braga, who greatly admired Rizal, wanted a good job of the
photograph and sent it to be engraved in London, a process taking well over two
months. It finally appeared under 'Mi último pensamiento,' a title he supplied
and by which it was known for a few years. Thus, when the Jesuit Balaguer's
anonymous account of the retraction and the marriage to Josephine was appearing
in Barcelona, no word of the poem's existence reached him in time to revise
what he had written. His account was too elaborate that Rizal would have had no
time to write "Adiós."
Six years after his death, when the Philippine
Organic Act of 1902 was being debated in the United States Congress,
Representative Henry Cooper of Wisconsin rendered an English translation of
Rizal's valedictory poem capped by the peroration, "Under what clime or
what skies has tyranny claimed a nobler victim?"[64]
Subsequently, the US Congress passed the bill into law which is now known as the
Philippine Organic Act of 1902.[65]
This was a major breakthrough for a US Congress that had
yet to grant equal rights to African Americans guaranteed to them in the US Constitution and the Chinese
Exclusion Act was still in effect. It created the Philippine
legislature, appointed two Filipino delegates to the US Congress, extended the
US Bill of Rights to Filipinos, and laid the foundation for an autonomous
government. The colony was on its way to independence.[65] The
Americans, however, would not sign the bill into law until 1916 and did not
recognize Philippine Independence until the Treaty
of Manila in 1946—fifty years after Rizal's death.This same poem
which has inspired liberty-loving peoples across the region and beyond was
recited (in its Bahasa
Indonesia translation by Rosihan Anwar) by Indonesian soldiers of
independence before going into battle.
Poet, essayist and fictionist Alejandro G. Abadilla (a.k.a.
AGA) was born in Salinas, Rosario, Cavite, on March 10, 1906. Finishing
elementary school at Sapa Barrio School and high school in Cavite, he went
abroad where he worked in a small print shop in Seattle. There he edited the
Filipino section of the Philippine Digest , became managing editor of the
Philippine-American Review , and established the Kapisanang Balagtas which
aimed "to develop the Tagalog language." Back in the Philippines, he
earned a BA in Philosophy from the University of Santo Tomas in 1931. Until
1934, he served as municipal councilor of Salinas, after which he made a living
selling insurance for the Philippine-American Life Insurance. He had eight
children with wife Cristina Zingalava. He passed away on August 26, 1969.
Called the "father of modern Tagalog poetry" by the critic Pedro
Ricarte, Abadilla challenged the established literature's excessive romanticism
and emphasis on rime and meter. He helped found the Kapisanang Panitikan in
1935, editing a magazine called Panitikan to propagate
the group's tenets of rebelling against stagnant art and of elevating the
quality of Tagalog literature.
Abadilla upheld iconoclasm and rebellion against tradition in his writing.
He exploded into the literary scene with Ako ang Daigdig at Iba Pang
Tula ( 1955), and Piniling mga Tula ni AGA (1965).
In his two editions of Tanagabadilla (1964,
1965), he re-imagined the traditional octosyllabic quatrain of the tanaga . His
novels include Sing-ganda ng Buhay (1947) and
the controversial Pagkamulat ni Magdalena (1958).
As critic, he edited Parnasong Tagalog,
where he collected for the first time in one book the major poems of Tagalog
poets from the 1800s to the 1940s, and Mga Kuwentong Ginto (1936),
with Clodualdo del Mundo Sr., Ang Maikling Kathang Tagalog (1954),
with Federico Sebastian and A. D. G. Mariano, and Maikling Katha ng 20 Pangunahing Awtor (1957),
with Ponciano B. P. Pineda, anthologies on the art of the short story.
To his colleagues, Bayani Abadilla or Ka Bay is the hero of the Filipino
people because he was not a simple teacher, poet and journalist; he also went
underground to fight Marcos dictatorship and later on became a fighter in the
cultural sphere.
Until
his last breath, he served as the associate of the Pinoy Weekly, a progressive
weekly newspaper, to wave his struggle for national freedom and genuine
democracy. Together with Bienvenido Lumbera, Abadilla worked in Panulat para sa
Kaunlaran ng Sambayanan or PAKSA which was formed in 1971. He was a member of
the Communist Party of the Philippines (CCP) and the organizer for the
Kabataang Makabayan (KM) IN 1970. He was persistent in removing imperialism,
feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism in the country.
A
son of writer Alejandro Abadilla, Ka Bay taught literature and journalism at
the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP) after the
Marcos’ era. According to his daughter, Malaya, Ka Bay was always resistant to
the idea of leaving Tambunting, an urban community in Manila, because he
wanted to be with the poor. National Artist for Literature Bienvenido Lumbera
and Ka Bay worked together in Panulat para sa Kaunlaran ng Sambayanan or PAKSA
which was formed in 1971.
He succumbed to lymphoma in May 14, 2008.
Source: bulatlat.com
Dr. Jose
Y. Dalisay Jr. (Butch Dalisay to readers of his
"Penman" column in the Philippine STAR) was born in Romblon,
Philippines in 1954.
As of January 2006, he had published 15 books of his stories, plays, and
essays, with five of those books receiving the National Book Award from the
Manila Critics Circle. In 1998, he was named to the Cultural Center of the
Philippines (CCP) Centennial Honors List for his work as a playwright and
fictionist.
He graduated from the University of the Philippines in 1984 (AB English, cum laude ), the University of Michigan (MFA, 1988) and
the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (PhD English, 1991). He teaches English and
Creative Writing as a full professor at the University of the Philippines,
where he also serves as coordinator of the creative writing program and as an
Associate of the UP Institute of Creative Writing. After serving as chairman of
the English Department, he became Vice President for Public Affairs of the UP
System from May 2003 to February 2005.
Among his distinctions, he has won 16 Palanca Awards in five genres
(entering the Palanca Hall of Fame in 2000), five Cultural Center of the
Philippines awards for playwriting, and Famas, Urian, Star and Catholic Film
awards and citations for his screenplays. He was named one of The Outstanding
Young Men (TOYM) of 1993 for his creative writing. He has been a Fulbright,
Hawthornden, David TK Wong, Rockefeller, and British Council fellow.
He is the current director of the UP ICW.
Website:
Email:
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6.Ophelia Alcantara
Dimalanta
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6.Ophelia
Alcantara Dimalanta
was born on June 16, 1934 in San Juan, Rizal. She obtained her B.A., M.A. and
Ph.D. in Literature from the University of Santo Tomas, where she has been
teaching literature and creative writing since 1953. She has been the recipient
of numerous honors, including fellowships from the East-West Center of the
University of Hawaii, The United States Information Service and the
International Writers' Program of the University of Iowa; Poet and Critic
Best Poem Award from Iowa State University (1968); Palanca Awards for Poetry
(1974, 1983); Fernando Maria Guerrero Award (1976); Focus Literary Awards for
Fiction (1977, 1981); Cultural Center of the Philippines Literature Grant for
Criticism (1983); the Gawad Pambansang Alagad ni Balagtas from the Writers'
Union of the Philippines (1990) and the South East Asia (SEA) Write Award
from King Bhumibol of Thailand (1999).
Dimalanta
is also Full Professor of English and has held the position of Dean of the
UST Faculty of Arts and Letters. She has been very visible as a panelist in
the UST, UP, Dumaguete and Iligan writers' workshops and as judge in
prominent literary award-giving bodies such as the Manila Critics' Circle,
Free Press, and Palanca. This status, alongside her vast teaching experience,
has enabled her to reach and influence generations of journalists and
creative writers like Recah Trinidad, Arnold Azurin, Cirilo Bautista,
Cristina Pantoja-Hidalgo, Eric Gamalinda, Jose Neil Garcia, Mike Coroza, and
Lourd de Veyra.
A
much anthologized poet, Dimalanta has published a number of books, including
the multi-awarded collection of poems, Montage.
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7.
Bienvenido L. Lumbera
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Bienvenido
L. Lumbera was born on
April 11, 1932. He spent most of his youth in Batangas until he entered the
University of Santo Tomas in 1950 to pursue a degree in journalism. He
completed his M.A. and then his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature at Indiana
University in 1967. Lumbera writes in English and Filipino, and has produced
works in both languages.
He
has a poetry collection entitled Likhang Dila, Likhang Diwa (1993), and
Balaybay: Mga Tulang Lunot at Manibalang, a collection of new poems in
Filipino and those from Likhang Dila. He has several critical works,
including Abot-Tanaw: Sulyap at Suri sa Nagbabagong Kultura at Lipunan (1987)
and Writing the Nation/Pag-akda ng Bansa (2000). He has also done several
librettos, among them Tales of the Manuvu (1977) and Rama Hari (1980). Sa
Sariling Bayan: Apat na Dulang May Musika (DLSU, 2003) collects the four
historical musicals Nasa Puso ang Amerika, Bayani, Noli Me Tangere: The
Musical, and Hibik at Himagsik Nina Victoria Laktaw.
Dr.
Lumbera has been a recipient of numerous awards, including the Ramon
Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts in
1993, the Gawad CCP, Gawad Pambansang Alagad ni Balagtas, Manila Critics'
Circle and the Palanca. He has also gained Professor Emeritus status in the
University of the Philippines. He also serves in the Board of Advisers of the
UP Institute of Creative Writing. This 2006, for his creative and critical
work directed towards a literature rooted in the search for nationhood, Dr.
Lumbera received the much-coveted title of National Artist for Literature.
More
details about Bienvenido Lumbera may be accessed at http://www.lumbera.ph.
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Bienvenido Lumbera
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8. Vim Nadera
Tayabas-born but Sampaloc-bred Victor Emmanuel Carmelo D.
Nadera, Jr. is an award-winning poet, fictionist, playwright, and
essayist. A B.S. and M.A. in Clinical Psychology degree-holder from the
University of Santo Tomas, he pioneers Poetry Therapy in the country. A series
of free sessions to cancer patients led to "Asia's first expressive art
workshop" at the National Arts Center in 1995 and the staging of his
satire Sens Op Tyumor in 1996. Among his outreach programs is the Three Ps , implemented in different hospitals and for
which he has won support from the Philippine Society of Oncologists in
different hospitals. In addition to being a member of Kapisanan ng May K sa
Pilipinas (KMKP), the umbrella organization of support groups of cancer
survivors in the Philippines, Nadera is involved with several universities and
the writers' groups LIRA, UMPIL, and PETA Writers' Bloc. He founded the UST
Writers' Workshop and the Moving the Pen Journalism/Literary Seminar in 1991,
as well as the USTETIKA, which has been producing rosters of great young
writers since 1989. At the University of the Philippines, he has been inspiring
students since he organized Gatula (1996) and other groups known for
Performance Poetry. Considered the "father of performance poetry in the
Philippines," he represented the Philippines in the Kuala Lumpur World
Poetry Reading (Malaysia, 2000), International Seminar on Southeast Asian
Literature (Malaysia, 2001), Asia Arts Net Annual Conference (Taiwan, 2001) and
Balagtasan sa Singapore (Singapore, 2002).
His epic Mujer Indigena and novel (H)istoryador(a) won the Centennial
Literary Prize in 1998. On Balagtas Day of the same year, Vim became the
youngest recipient of the Recognition Award from the Commission on Filipino
Language, the same body known formerly as Institute of National Language that
proclaimed him youngest Poet of the Year in 1985. He has also won in the
National Book Awards, Rizal International Filipino Poetry Contest, Gawad
Collantes, Palanca Awards, Carlos Bulosan Award. Other awards include the Gawad
Leopoldo Yabes, Gawad Parangal ng Quezon, Gawad Chancellor, and TOYM. A
prolific editor, critic, columnist, translator and author, his latest books are
Poetreat: The Use of Poetry Therapy in Mutual Support Groups of
Cancer Survivors in Metro Manila (UST, 2000) and Asinta: Mga Tula at Tudla (UST, 2002). Vim is at
present the seventh, and the youngest, Director of the UP Institute of Creative
Writing.
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