Sionil Jose honored at Palanca Awards

MANILA, Philippines - For his valuable contributions to Philippine literature, Philippine STAR columnist Francisco Sionil Jose, dubbed as the “Old Man of Philippine Letters,” was honored by the Carlos Palanca Foundation with its prestigious Dangal Ng Lahi award at the 61st Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature (Palanca Awards) during its annual awarding rites held Thursday night at The Peninsula Manila Hotel in Makati.

Also the guest of honor of the just concluded awards ceremony, Jose is a national treasure who has continuously regaled Filipinos with some of the finest prose ever to see print, including 12 novels, seven books of short stories, a book of verse, and five important books of essays, all in English but many of which are now available in 28 languages.

He is also a five-time Palanca awardee for his short stories “The God Stealer” in 1959, “Waywaya” in 1979, “Arbol de Fuego” (Firetree) in 1980, his novel “Mass” in 1981, and his essay “A Scenario for Philippine Resistance” in 1979.

The Palanca Awards, the country’s most prestigious and most enduring literary awards, gathered a total of 1,160 entries this year, submitted from all over the country. A total of 55 writers and 58 winning works were selected – with close to half (44 percent) being first-time winners.

Noteworthy is the significant boost in participation of young writers aged 18 years old and below, particularly in the Kabataan Essay division. Palanca Awards received 65 submissions in the division, a 109 percent increase from last year.

The Palanca Awards also opened the Novel category this year, gathering a record-breaking submission of 57 entries for both English and Filipino, an increase of 84 percent from 2008. The Novel category opens every three years.

In honor of Don Carlos Palanca, Sr., the Award aims to help develop Philippine literature for writers to craft their most outstanding literary work; to be a treasury of the Philippines’ literary gems from our gifted writers; and to assist in its dissemination to the public, especially students.

Now hosting a total of 2,052 winning works, the Palanca Awards, for over six decades, has been enriching the country’s cultural heritage by recognizing the best works all over the country. What started as a small yet potent collection of six stories in 1951 has now grown into a wide and deep treasury of the best of Philippine literature.

At present, the Carlos Palanca Foundation already has, in its collection, 527 short stories, 366 collections of poetry, 208 essays, 344 one-act plays, 182 full-length plays, 60 teleplays, 54 screenplays, 148 stories for children, 34 futuristic fiction stories, 77 student essays, 36 novels, and 16 collections of poetry for children. These works are compiled and made available to all researchers and lovers of literature at the Foundation library and its official website, www.palancaawards.com.ph.