Tuesday, September 18, 2012

IN HONOR OF FILIPINO & FILIPINO AMERICAN WRITERS - BIENVENIDO N. SANTOS


IN HONOR OF FILIPINO & FILIPINO AMERICAN WRITERS WHO HAVE FORGED THE WAY FOR OTHER WRITERS:



BIENVENIDO N. SANTOS - Here we have Bienvenido N. Santos, or Ben, as his friends called him, born 1911 and died 1996. Ben was the first Filipino American writer to encourage my creative writing, and he introduced me to the publishing manager (Gloria Rodriguez) of my first publisher, New Day.


Bienvenido N. Santos was a novelist who grew up in Manila's slums and then moved to the United States and wrote about the pain of Filipino exiles there.

Santos, who wrote in English, was a Rockefeller Foundation fellow and Fulbright professor at the University of Iowa and later received a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship, the American Book Award and the Philippine Republic Cultural Heritage Award.

From 1961 to 1966 he was dean and vice president of the University of Nueva Caceres in the Philippines.

In the 1970's, his novel "The Praying Man," about political corruption, was banned by the Government of Ferdinand E. Marcos. Mr. Santos went into voluntary exile in the United States.

He was writer in residence from 1973 to 1982 at Wichita State University and became an American citizen in 1976. He made his first visit home from exile after the lifting of martial law in 1981.



Bottom photo, l-r: Bienvenido N. Santos and Cecilia Brainard. This photo was taken at the book launching of Cecilia's second short story collection, Acapulco at Sunset and Other Stories, shortly before he passed away.

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