Lina Espina-Moore (b. 1919, d.2000)
was born in Toledo, Cebu, the fifth child and second daughter of Yrinea Regner and Gerundio Espina. She attended Cebu Central College, the Cebu Intermediate High School, Southern Colleges and the FEU before becoming a cub reporter for the Manila Times.
Lina belonged to the post Second World War generation of Filipino
writers who contributed much to the vitality of Philippine
Literature in English. She wrote novels, short
stories, essays, and poetry in Cebuano and in English. An
outstanding fictionist, her novels and stories written in her
native Cebuano have appeared in Bisaya magazine. She wrote three novels in English: Heart of the Lotus (1970); A
Lion in the House (1980), and The Honey, the Locusts
(1992). Her short stories are found in two collections:
Cuentos (1985), and Choice (1995).
Some her stories have been
translated into Japanese, Mandarin, Mahasa, German, and
Tagalog. The former Chair Person of the Cebu Chapter of
PEN, she edited Cebuano Harvest (1991). For her
distinguished service, she has received many awards, among them
the Gawad Pampansang Algad ni Balagtas in 1992 and the SEAWRITE
Award in 1989. She also edited the short stories
of another Cebuana writer, The Stories of Estrella Alfon.
Lina Espina-Moore was married for
17 years to C.S. (Kip) Moore, an American lumber company
executive. They lived in Mt. Data, Mountain Province, where
she wrote extensively on the life an times of the tribal
minorities of the Central Cordilleras. She was widowed in
1976. She resided in Alabang, Metro Manila, but moved to
her hometown Cebu in recent years to be with her son and his
family.
The awards she received include: Outstanding Achievement in the Field of English Literature from the
Province of Cebu (1975), Pan Pacific Southeast Asian Association Award
in the Field of the English Novel (1975), Magsusulat Award for Exemplary
Contribution to Literature in Cebuano (1987), and the much-esteemed
Thailand Southeast Asian Write Award presented by HRH Crown Prince
Vajiralongkorn for her novel Heart of the Lotus in 1989. In 1992 she
received both the Women in Travel Award in the Field of Literature and
the Literary Award from the Mariano F. Manguerra Foundation. (Other recipients of the Mariano F. Manguerra Award are Marjorie Evasco, Simeon Dumdum, Jr. and Erma Cuizon.
top: Lina Espina Moore
next, l-r: Concepcion Cuenco Manguerra and Lina Espina Moore when Lina received the Mariano F. Manguerra Award;
bottom l-r: Cecilia Manguerra Brainard and Lina Espina Moore
tags: Filipino writer, Filipino literature, Cebuano writers
No comments:
Post a Comment