Category: literati
The Manila Review interviews Katrina Stuart Santiago
by CAROLINE S. HAU AND MIGUEL SYJUCO Last April, literary critic and essayist Katrina Stuart Santiago wrote a controversial polemic about patronage and cliquishness in the Philippine writing establishment. MR editors Caroline S. Hau (CSH) and Miguel Syjuco (MS) … Continue reading
More than a century of Lope K. Santos’ Banaag at Sikat
By Elmer Ordoñez As a columnist in English I cannot ignore intellectual trends in Filipino, which has been the preferred language of many professors in their fields (notably Ateneo, UP, La Salle, all elite schools) – which is only just … Continue reading
The ‘golden age’ and the little magazine
By Elmer Ordoñez The post-war years were euphoric—being free again, going back to school, and meeting friends who had all become adults, and missing some, casualties of a brutal war. They were also uneasy times because of the Huk rebellion … Continue reading
Carlos Bulosan on writers after the war
By Elmer Ordonez Retrieved from my chaotic files is a copy of Carlos Bulosan’s typewritten notes (five pages) on Filipino writers after the war. It was sent years ago by Prof. Epifanio “Sonny” San Juan (the leading authority on expatriate … Continue reading
Literature (art) and propaganda
The writers workshop method was imported from abroad by NVM Gonzalez and the Tiempos whose workshops continue to train our writers in the formalist manner. Generations of students fell under the spell of this pedagogy and a few of them, … Continue reading
A memorable decade: Writers before the war
A book burning incident occurred sometime in the early 40s when younger writers led by Alejandro Abadilla and Teodoro Agoncillo cast into a bonfire the works of the so-called traditional and balagtasan writers. This was unfortunately reminiscent of the book … Continue reading