Here's a voice from the past! I came across this note from the famous Filipino novelist, Bienvenido N. Santos. In it, he writes:
May 22, 1988
Dear Cecilia,
Thank you for the autographed copy of your book. Now I can read the complete collection.
As a regular commuter between the R.P and the U.S. every six months each year since 1981, promoting my books and teaching, I know what you mean when you say "I am tired." Consider, too, that I'm a 77-year old man.
But I keep busy, which to me, is a way of survival. Manila is an exciting town to visit. I was born there, but the place has changed, the people, too.
I missed you at the poetry reading in which I participated in L.A., April 9. I asked Linda where you were and she told me: Sorry our paths didn't cross.
I'm leaving at the end of the month for the Wash/DC area to speak and to refine my work in progress. Wish me well as I do you. Thank you again. Regards to Lauren.
Ben Santos
~~
Bio of Bienvenido N. Santos
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.
~~
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tags: Philippines, Philippine literature, novelist, writer, author, Bienvenido Santos, Ben Santos, Filipino American
This is all for now,
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