THE FILIPINO WRITERS

THE FILIPINO WRITERS

Nick Joaquin, is regarded by many as the most distinguished Filipino writer in English writing so variedly and so well about so many aspects of the Filipino. Nick Joaquin has also enriched the English language with critics coining "Joaquinesque" to describe his baroque Spanish-flavored English or his reinventions of English based on Filipinisms. Aside from his handling of language, Bienvenido Lumbera writes that Nick Joaquin's significance in Philippine literature involves his exploration of the Philippine colonial past under Spain and his probing into the psychology of social changes as seen by the young, as exemplified in stories such as Doña Jeronima, Candido's Apocalypse and The Order of Melchizedek. Nick Joaquin has written plays, novels, poems, short stories and essays including reportage and journalism. As a journalist, Nick Joaquin uses the nome de guerre Quijano de Manila but whether he is writing literature or journalism, fellow National Artist Francisco Arcellana opines that "it is always of the highest skill and quality".

Among his voluminous works are The Woman Who Had Two Navels, A Portrait of the Artist as Filipino, Manila, My Manila: A History for the Young, The Ballad of the Five Battles, Rizal in Saga, Almanac for Manileños, Cave and Shadows.

Nick Joaquin died April 29, 2004

Jose Garcia Villa is considered as one of the finest contemporary poets regardless of race or language. Villa, who lived in Singalong, Manila, introduced the reversed consonance rime scheme, including the comma poems that made full use of the punctuation mark in an innovative, poetic way. The first of his poems "Have Come, Am Here" received critical recognition when it appeared in New York in 1942 that, soon enough, honors and fellowships were heaped on him: Guggenheim, Bollingen, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Awards. He used Doveglion (Dove, Eagle, Lion) as penname, the very characters he attributed to himself, and the same ones explored by e.e. cummings in the poem he wrote for Villa (Doveglion, Adventures in Value). Villa is also known for the tartness of his tongue.

Villa's works have been collected into the following books: Footnote to Youth, Many Voices, Poems by Doveglion, Poems 55, Poems in Praise of Love: The Best Love Poems of Jose Garcia Villa as Chosen By Himself, Selected Stories, The Portable Villa, The Essential Villa, Mir-i-nisa, Storymasters 3: Selected Stories from Footnote to Youth, 55 Poems: Selected and Translated into Tagalog by Hilario S. Francia.

 Carlos P. Romulo's multifaceted career spanned 50 years of public service as educator, soldier, university president, journalist and diplomat. It is common knowledge that he was the first Asian president of the United Nations General Assembly, then Philippine Ambassador to Washington, D.C., and later minister of foreign affairs. Essentially though, Romulo was very much into writing: he was a reporter at 16, a newspaper editor by the age of 20, and a publisher at 32. He was the only Asian to win America's coveted Pulitzer Prize in Journalism for a series of articles predicting the outbreak of World War II. Romulo, in all, wrote and published 18 books, a range of literary works which included The United (novel), I Walked with Heroes (autobiography), I Saw the Fall of the Philippines, Mother America, I See the Philippines Rise (war-time memoirs).

His other books include his memoirs of his many years' affiliations with United Nations (UN), Forty Years: A Third World Soldier at the UN, and The Philippine Presidents, his oral history of his experiences serving all the Philippine presidents.

Francisco Baltazar, known much more widely through his nom-de-plume Francisco Balagtas, was a prominent Filipino poet, and is widely considered as the Tagalog equivalent of William Shakespeare for his impact on Filipino literature. The famous epic, Florante at Laura, is regarded as his defining work.
Balagtas learned to write poetry from José de la Cruz (Huseng Sisiw), one of the most famous poets of Tondo. It was de la Cruz himself who personally challenged Balagtas to improve his writing. (source: Talambuhay ng mga Bayani, for Grade 5 textbook)
In 1835, Balagtas moved to Pandacan, where he met María Asunción Rivera, who would effectively serve as the muse for his future works. She is referenced in Florante at Laura as ‘Celia’ and ‘MAR’.
Balagtas’ affections for Celia were challenged by the influential Mariano Capule. Capule won the battle for Celia when he used his wealth to get Balagtas imprisoned under the accusation that he ordered a servant girl’s head be shaved. It was here that he wrote Florante at Laura—In fact, the events of this poem were meant to parallel his own situation.
He wrote his poems in Tagalog, during an age when Filipino writing was predominantly written in Spanish.
Balagtas published Florante at Laura upon his release in 1838. He moved to Balanga, Bataan in 1840 where he served as the assistant to the Justice of peace and later, in 1856, as the Major Lieutenant. He was also appointed as the translator of the court.
Balagtas is so greatly revered in the Philippines that the term for Filipino debate in extemporaneous verse is named for him: balagtasan.


Dr. José Protacio Rizal Mercado y Alonzo Realonda   ^[1] (June 19, 1861 – December 30, 1896, ancestral home: Quanzhou, Fujian^[2]), was a Filipino polymath, nationalist and the most prominent advocate for reforms in the Philippines during the Spanish colonial era. He is the country's national hero and the anniversary of Rizal's death is commemorated as a Philippine holiday called Rizal Day. Rizal's 1896 military trial and execution made him a martyr of the Philippine Revolution. His height was only 4 feet and 11 inches.
The seventh of eleven children born to a wealthy family in the town of Calamba, Laguna, Rizal attended the Ateneo Municipal de Manila, earning a Bachelor of Arts. He enrolled in Medicine and Philosophy and Letters at the University of Santo Tomas and then traveled alone to Madrid, Spain, where he continued his studies at the Universidad Central de Madrid, earning the degree of Licentiate in Medicine. He attended the University of Paris and earned a second doctorate at the University of Heidelberg. Rizal was a polyglot conversant in at least ten languages.^[3][4][5][6] He was a prolific poet, essayist, diarist, correspondent, and novelist whose most famous works were his two novels, Noli me Tangere and El filibusterismo.^[7] These are social commentaries on the Philippines that formed the nucleus of literature that inspired dissent among peaceful reformists and spurred the militancy of armed revolutionaries from the Spanish colonial authorities.
As a political figure, Rizal was the founder of La Liga Filipina, a civic organization that subsequently gave birth to the Katipunan^[8] led by Andres Bonifacio and Emilio Aguinaldo. He was a proponent of institutional reforms by peaceful means rather than by violent revolution. The general consensus among Rizal scholars, however, is that his death was the catalyst that precipitated the Philippine Revolution.




 Amado V. Hernandez
Literature (1973)

Amado V. Hernandez, poet, playwright, and novelist, is among the Filipino writers who practiced "committed art". In his view, the function of the writer is to act as the conscience of society and to affirm the greatness of the human spirit in the face of inequity and oppression. Hernandez's contribution to the development of Tagalog prose is considerable -- he stripped Tagalog of its ornate character and wrote in prose closer to the colloquial than the "official" style permitted. His novel Mga Ibong Mandaragit, first written by Hernandez while in prison, is the first Filipino socio-political novel that exposes the ills of the society as evident in the agrarian problems of the 50s.

Hernandez's other works include Bayang Malaya, Isang Dipang Langit, Luha ng Buwaya, Amado V. Hernandez: Tudla at Tudling: Katipunan ng mga Nalathalang Tula 1921-1970, Langaw sa Isang Basong Gatas at Iba Pang Kuwento ni Amado V. Hernandez, Magkabilang Mukha ng Isang Bagol at Iba Pang Akda ni Amado V. Hernandez.

Carlo J. Caparas
He was the man responsible for the creation of the undying story of Ang Panday (The Blacksmith). In addition to that, he also created other great stories who later turned to movies and/or TV series such as Gagambino, Bakekang, Totoy Bato, and Joaquin Bordado to name a few. Caparas was originally a comic strip writer who later ventured in to film directing and producing. In July 2009, he was proclaimed as a National Artist of the Philippines in the category of Visual Arts and Film.
- See more at: http://www.filipinoshortstories.com/10-most-popular-filipino-writers-of-all-time/#sthash.6KLcHWtF.dpuf

Carlo J. Caparas
He was the man responsible for the creation of the undying story of Ang Panday (The Blacksmith). In addition to that, he also created other great stories who later turned to movies and/or TV series such as Gagambino, Bakekang, Totoy Bato, and Joaquin Bordado to name a few. Caparas was originally a comic strip writer who later ventured in to film directing and producing. In July 2009, he was proclaimed as a National Artist of the Philippines in the category of Visual Arts and Film.
- See more at: http://www.filipinoshortstories.com/10-most-popular-filipino-writers-of-all-time/#sthash.6KLcHWtF.dpuf