Writing Amid the Babel of Books by Vicente L. Rafael - How I Became a Writer 2

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 70^th birthday. He was married to Lila Ramos Shahani. He submitted the following article in December of 2025.

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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.