A well-deserved international literary prize
I write this on deadline hour on Friday, having just joined the literary panel on the last day of the first week of the National Writers Workshop run by Silliman University in Dumaguete City.
I share a table with two of the regular panelists visiting from Manila — Jimmy Abad and Sarge Lacuesta — at Don Atilano’s, a fine-dining restaurant on the ground floor of Residencia Al Mar hotel on Rizal Boulevard, facing the popular esplanade and the sea. To be specific, make that Tañon Strait.
Having been at sea, literally and figuratively, over the past week has rendered my memory banks a-quiver with disorientation. I’ve forgotten that we’re already on the hours preceding TGIF, which means I have to e-mail a column for today.
Thankfully, good young buddy Igan D’Bayan sets my time-and-space compass right with a propitious SMS. And more’s the luck that there has indeed been something wonderful to report, freshly heard, from the true gentleman of the old and new school now visiting his G-mail right beside me. It’s the real reason we’re here at Don Atilano’s, by the by: for the free WiFi.
Sarge is also at it on his trusty black MacBook, while Jimmy is tenderly ministering to his MacBook Air. And I’m oh so loyally drawing fingertip camaraderie from my four-year-old iBook, which should probably soon see a replacement, except for my legendary sense of fidelity.
We are also celebrating great good news, quietly for now, but after sunset and eventual dinner we should be reconvening with the 15 young writers who have been awarded fellowships. It will be in a more informal setting. Methinks it’s going to be at the Blue Monkey beerhouse and resto, on an open lot that used to be idle albeit enjoying a good vantage at the corner of the boulevard and Silliman avenue. That means it has a proximate view of the sea, the harbor, and the venerable Silliman Hall.
Right after our afternoon session that took up a couple of good short stories, I told some of the kids I’d be treating for TGIF. That’s partly because four of the 15 writing fellows happen to have been Ateneo students of mine in previous years: Monique Francisco, Niño Manaog, Arkaye Kierulf and Bea Nakpil. Mainly, however, the treat would owe itself to the MVP Award for LeBron James, whom I once taught to play basketball the way he now does.
Who says Fiction class or poetic license always comes to naught?
In any case, the rest of the young cast, of the Dumaguete Batch 2009, are Mariane Amor Romina T. Abuan, Jonathan S. Gonzales, Patricia Angela F. Magno, Keith Bryan T. Cortez, Ana Margarita Stuart del Rosario, Russell Stanley Geronimo, Aleck E. Maramag, Gabriel Millado, and Joy C. Rodriguez, Philip Y. Kimpo, Jr. and Marck Ronald Rimorin.
That’s 15 beers at least if they all take me up on the offer, for starters. Hmm. A good thing we also toast to something other than LeBron. And that is the latest literary triumph of my best buddy Jimmy Abad. The kids should take heart that their creative writing efforts could someday lead to a prestigious international prize.
Two years ago, Jimmy was invited to attend the 2007 Mediterranea Festival in Rome, where an Albanian poet, Gezim Hajdari, offered to initiate the translation into Italian of his landmark poetry collection In Ordinary Time (UP Press, 2004). Hajdari worked on it together with Amoa Fatuiva, and unbeknownst to Jimmy, entered the translation manuscript in a competition.
Here’s the result — an e-mailed letter received by Jimmy on his third day in Dumaguete (herein excerpted):
“Rome, May 4, 2009
“Dear Professor Gémino H. Abad,
“We are particularly proud to inform you that our Committee has awarded you the Prize Premio Feronia — Città di Fiano 2009, for the section ‘Foreign Author.’
“The Prize, first created 16 years ago, has an antagonistic character as compared to other major literary awards in our Country, that are tightly bound to marketing strategies of dominant publishing houses. As an example, all official meetings of our Committee are open-door to guarantee the maximum of integrity.
“The winners of previous editions of Feronia Prize — section ‘Foreign Author’ — are: Günter Grass, Adonis and Natan Zach (ex-aequo), Leroi Jones, John M. Coetzee, Alfonso Sastre, Predrag Matvejevic, Michel Butor, Ismail Kadaré, Gao Xingjian, Roberto Fernández Retamar, Mahmud Darwish, Yvonne Vera, Dubravka Ugresic, Saadi Yousef, Kunwar Narain, Muhammad Bennis, Agotha Kristof.
“The Prize will be conferred to you during the Nomination Ceremony which will be held on July 11, 2009 at the Castle of Fiano Romano, an historic place just outside Rome. The amount of the Prize is 3,600 euros and it is subject to the restriction that you must be present in person at the Nomination Ceremony to receive it. I know, however, that during the same days you will be also invited to attend the Italian Festival ‘Mediterranea’ in Rome.
“This letter represents the official invitation for you in order to attend the Ceremony and the other ancillary meetings we are organizing to promote you and your activity in our Country. Obviously the Prize will take care of your travel expenses and of your stay in Italy...
“We strongly trust that your visit to Italy and your participation to the Nomination Ceremony will be a major event for our organization and for our Country. We really hope to have you in Italy on July.
“With best regards, Filippo Bettini, President of the Committee.”
Hoo-hah!
The best of our poets and writers not only see the world. They do so as among the world’s best. Tonight we offer libations to the Roman gods that have recognized this, that we have an MVP in dear Jimmy.
