BIO
Francisco Sionil José’s novels, short stories and non-fiction works highlight the social underpinnings, class struggles and colonial history of Filipino society.
He is best known for his epic work, The Rosales Saga – five novels encompassing a hundred years of Philippine history, painting a vivid documentary of Filipino life.
Since starting his writing career in 1949, José has written more than 35 books, translated into more than 20 languages and published worldwide. He has also been involved with international cultural organizations, notably International P.E.N., the world association of poets, playwrights, essayists and novelists, whose Philippine Center he founded in 1958.
José has worked as a journalist, and has founded a bookshop, publishing house and art gallery. In 1966, he established Solidarity, a monthly magazine of “current affairs, ideas and the arts,” whose contributors included Southeast Asia’s leading writers, poets, statesmen, scholars and political activists.
According to Prof. Edwin Thumboo of the National University of Singapore, “Ever the visionary, Frankie saw Southeast Asia as a region well ahead of the politicians, political scientists and economists. Solidarity did more to advance the understanding of Southeast Asia and the sense of it as a region, than any other journal.”
Recognitions of José’s literary works and his influence on the Philippines and Asia include the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature and Creative Arts (1980), Philippine National Artist (2001), and the Pablo Neruda Centennial Award (2004), and Officer in the French Order of Arts and Letters (2014).
Now in his nineties, he continues to be a prolific writer and relentless voice against social injustice and national amnesia. Almost daily, he still climbs the three flights of steps to his writing alcove at the Solidaridad Bookshop in Manila.
He is best known for his epic work, The Rosales Saga – five novels encompassing a hundred years of Philippine history, painting a vivid documentary of Filipino life.
Since starting his writing career in 1949, José has written more than 35 books, translated into more than 20 languages and published worldwide. He has also been involved with international cultural organizations, notably International P.E.N., the world association of poets, playwrights, essayists and novelists, whose Philippine Center he founded in 1958.
José has worked as a journalist, and has founded a bookshop, publishing house and art gallery. In 1966, he established Solidarity, a monthly magazine of “current affairs, ideas and the arts,” whose contributors included Southeast Asia’s leading writers, poets, statesmen, scholars and political activists.
According to Prof. Edwin Thumboo of the National University of Singapore, “Ever the visionary, Frankie saw Southeast Asia as a region well ahead of the politicians, political scientists and economists. Solidarity did more to advance the understanding of Southeast Asia and the sense of it as a region, than any other journal.”
Recognitions of José’s literary works and his influence on the Philippines and Asia include the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature and Creative Arts (1980), Philippine National Artist (2001), and the Pablo Neruda Centennial Award (2004), and Officer in the French Order of Arts and Letters (2014).
Now in his nineties, he continues to be a prolific writer and relentless voice against social injustice and national amnesia. Almost daily, he still climbs the three flights of steps to his writing alcove at the Solidaridad Bookshop in Manila.
RECOGNITION
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The Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundaton
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"As an artist, he incorporates the devastating knowledge of his probable ineffectuality with his refusal to cease, prodding the social conscience of his countrymen. 'I want to be a mirror or a witness to my time,' he writes, 'and in so being, I also hope I am expressing the view of those millions who have no voice.' Moreover, José believes, as one of his characters says, 'We die when we stop being angry.'" |
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James Fallows
The Atlantic |
"America has no counterpart ... no one who is simultaneously a prolific novelist, a social and political organizer, an editor and journalist, and a small-scale entrepreneur ... As a writer, José is famous for two bodies of work. One is the Rosales sequence, a set of five novels published over a twenty-year span which has become a kind of national saga." |
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Pico Iyer
The New York Times |
"Mr. José, a publisher, bookseller and ubiquitous Philippine novelist, is a loving, anguished chronicler of the steady degradation of his once-elegant homeland." |
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Francisco Tatad
The Manila Times |
"Indeed, it is his literature, not his politics, that has made Sionil José what he is, and it is what the nation has a right and a duty to celebrate today." |
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Arthur Lundkvist
The Swedish Academy, Stockholm |
"Sionil José has the ability to write evocatively ... his descriptions of the rural enviorment have an intense glow and a lyrical shine ... truly an emancipated stylist, an interpreter of character and analyst of society." |