The book, How I Became a Writer : Essays by Filipino and Filipino American Writers 2 (Edited by Cecilia Manguerra Brainard, published by Vibal 2026) will be released in September of this year. The book will be launched in Cebu and Manila; details are forthcoming.
I am sharing this essay by Professor Vicente L. Rafael who unfortunately passed away last February 21, 2026. He had sent his essay soon after I put out the Call in December 2025. Dr. Rafael is one of 25 contributors to the collection, How I Became a Writer 2 ~ Cecilia Brainard, Editor
VICENTE L. RAFAEL (1956-2026)
BIO: VICENTE L. RAFAEL was Professor of History and Southeast
Asian Studies at the University of Washington in Seattle. His research and
teaching focused mostly on the comparative political and cultural history of
the Philippines, the United States and Southeast Asia.
He wrote The Sovereign Trickster:
Death and Laughter in the Age of Duterte (2022). The rest of his books
include Contracting Colonialism: Translation and Christian Conversion in
Tagalog Society Under Early Spanish Rule (1988/1993), White Love and Other
Events in Filipino Histories (2000), The Promise of the Foreign: Nationalism
and the Technics of Translation in the Spanish Philippines (2005), “Motherless
Tongues: The Insurgency of Language Amid Wars of Translation (2016), all
published by Duke University and co-published in the Philippines by Ateneo
University Press.
He also edited Discrepant
Histories: Translocal Essays in Filipino Cultures (1995) and Figures of
Criminality in Indonesia, the Philippines and Colonial Vietnam (1999). Rafael also wrote the Introduction to a
collection of Nick Joaquin’s stories, The Woman Who Had Two Navels and Tales
of the Tropical Gothic published by Penguin Classics (2017).
Rafael also writes op-ed columns for Rappler, The Daily Inquirer
in the Philippines, and has written for The
Atlantic, The New York Review of
Books in the US. He waw the recipient of numerous awards both abroad and in
the Philippines, including a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, Social Science
Research Council Fellowship, a Ford Foundation fellowship, and residencies at
the Stanford Humanities Center, Univ. of California, Irvine Humanities Center,
East-West Center in Honolulu, and several others. After graduating with a PhD
in History and Anthropology from Cornell Univ., he taught at the University of
Hawai’I at Manoa, the University of California at San Diego, Stanford
University and the University of Washington, Seattle.
Vicente L. Rafael passed away on February 21, 2026, five days
after his 70th birthday. He was married to Lila Ramos Shahani. He
submitted the following article in December of 2025. Copyright 2026 by Vicente L. Rafael. Reprinted with his permission.
***
WRITING AMID THE BABEL OF BOOKS
My
practice and habits of writing have always been shaped by my reading. And most
of the books I have read come from my explorations of various libraries. I
could not imagine writing without the sheltering space of libraries and the
enabling generosity of librarians. So let me start with an account of how
libraries have been important to my writing.
.jpg)
