Literature of the Philippines: Encyclopedia II - Literature of the Philippines - Modern Literature XX Century

Literature of the Philippines - Modern Literature XX Century

Ironically, a greater portion of Spanish literature by native Filipinos was written during the American commonwealth period because the Spanish language was still predominant for the Filipino intellectuals. One of the major Philippine writers (Claro Mayo Recto continued writing in Spanish until 1946. Other well know Spanish writers, especially during the American period were Isidro Marfori, Cecilio Apostol(Pentelicas, 1941), Fernando Ma. Guerrero (Crisalidas, 1914), Gaspar Aquino de Belen, Flavio Zaragoza Cano (Cantos a Espana and De Mactan a Tirad) and others.

Among the newspapers published in Spanish were El Renacimiento, La Democracia, La Vanguardia, El Pueblo de Iloilo, El Tiempo and others. Three magazines, The Independent, Philippine Free Press and Philippine Review were published in English and Spanish.

In 1915, the local newspapers began publishing sections in English. Cebu had its share of writers in Spanish, most of whom wrote during the early decades of the century. Although their output would diminish in later years, Jose del Mar won a Zobel prize for his work Perfiles in 1965.

In Asian literature, Filipinos excel especially in short stories. Leon Comber, the former British publisher of Heinemann Writing in Asia Series and the head judge for the Asiaweek Short Story Competition commended the Filipino writers in his introduction to the book 'Prize Winning Asian Fiction', published by Times Book International, 1991. He said: "Many of the best short stories came from the Philippines... because Filipino writers felt at ease using English as a medium of expression. In fact, their country is the third largest English-speaking nation in the world and they take to writing in the language as a form of 'artistic expression' and show just as much zest and natural talent for it as they do for painting, music and the other arts."

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Modern Literature XX Century", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki