BIENVENIDO SANTOSA novelist, short story writer, poet, and activist, Santos's early writings were in the English language he learned at school, Tondo (the language of his mother's songs at home), and Tagalog (the native language of the Philippines). In 1932, he earned a B.A. from the University of the Philippines. Under the Philippine Pensionado program (a continuation of the U.S. one begun in 1903), Santos came to the University of Illinois for a master's degree in English. Later he studied at Harvard, Columbia, and, as a Rockefeller Foundation fellow, at the University of Iowa. His first two novels, Villa Magdalena and The Volcano, were published in the Philippines in 1965. Santos became an American citizen in 1976. One year later, the Marcos regime banned his novel about government corruption, The Praying Man, and he and his wife remained in San Francisco. Scent of Apples (1980), his only book to be published in the United States, won the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation. He wrote more than a dozen books about exiles in both of his adopted countries, including the short story collections including You Lovely People (1955) and Brother, My Brother (1960).
(Source: factmonster.com.ph: People. 2000. Web. 24 June 2009.
<http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0880711.html>.)
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FRANCISCO SIONIL JOSE
Francisco Sionil Jose has been called a Philippine national treasure. Born on December 3, 1924 in Rosales, Philippines, he was introduced to literature in public school and later at the University of Santo Tomas. While working as a journalist in Manila, he moonlighted writing short stories and eventually novels. In the late fifties Jose founded the Philippine branch of PEN, an international organization of poets, playwrights, and novelists. In 1965 he started his own publishing house SOLIDARIDAD, and a year later he began publishing the remarkable Solidarity, a journal of current affairs, ideas, and arts, still going strong today.Jose wrote in English rather than in his national language Tagalog, or his native language Illocano. In 1962 he published his first novel The Pretenders. Today his publications include twelve novels, seven books of short stories, a book of verse, and five important books of essays. His works are available in 28 languages. He has been awarded numerous fellowships and awards, most notable being the 1980 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature, and Creative Communication Arts, the most prestigious award of its kind in Asia, and most recently, and the 2004 Pablo Neruda Centennial Award from Chile.
(Source: me.uvic.ca.com: Francisco Sionil Jose.Web. 24 June 2009.
<http://www.me.uvic.ca/~art/afsj.html>.)
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