Nick Joaquin, byname of Nicomedes Joaquin, (born May 4, 1917, Paco, Manila, Phil.

—died April 29,

2004, San Juan, Phil.), Filipino novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, and biographer whose works present
the diverse heritage of the Filipino people.

NOTABLE WORKS

“A Portrait of the Artist as Filipino”

“The Aquinos of Tarlac: An Essay on History of Three Generations”

“Cave and Shadows”

“The Woman Who Had Two Navels”

Joaquin was awarded a scholarship to the Dominican monastery in Hong Kong after publication of his
essay “La Naval de Manila” (1943), a description of Manila’s fabled resistance to 17th-century Dutch
invaders. After World War II he traveled to the United States, Mexico, and Spain, later serving as a
cultural representative of the Philippines to Taiwan, Cuba, and China.

Starting as a proofreader for the Philippines Free Press, Joaquin rose to contributing editor and essayist
under the nom de plume “Quijano de Manila” (“Manila Old-Timer”). He was well known as a historian of
the brief Golden Age of Spain in the Philippines, as a writer of short stories suffused with folk Roman
Catholicism, as a playwright, and as a novelist.

The novel The Woman Who Had Two Navels (1961) examines his country’s various heritages. A Portrait
of the Artist as Filipino (1966), a celebrated play, attempts to reconcile historical events with dynamic
change. The Aquinos of Tarlac: An Essay on History as Three Generations (1983) presents a biography of
Benigno Aquino, the assassinated presidential candidate. The action of the novel Cave and Shadows
(1983) occurs in the period of martial law under Ferdinand Marcos. Joaquin’s other works include the
short-story collections Tropical Gothic (1972) and Stories for Groovy Kids (1979), the play Tropical
Baroque (1979), and the collections of poetry The Ballad of the Five Battles (1981) and Collected Verse
(1987). Joaquin’s later works are mostly nonfiction, including Manila, My Manila: A History for the Young
(1990), The D.M. Guevara Story (1993), and Mr. F.E.U., the Culture Hero That Was Nicanor Reyes (1995).
Bienvenido N. Santos, 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, died Sunday at his family home in Legaspi near the
Mount Mayon volcano in the northern Philippines. He was 84.

Mr. 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.

He was born on March 22, 1911, and grew up in the notorious Tondo slum district of Manila. He went to
the United States in 1941 on a Philippine Government scholarship and studied English at the University
of Illinois, Columbia and Harvard.

When the Philippines were invaded by Japan in World War II, Mr. Santos began working for the
Philippine Government in exile in Washington and gave lectures on the spirit of Philippine resistance.
After the war, his novel "The Volcano" examined an emerging anti-Americanism in the Philippines.

He is survived by a son, Tomas, and three daughters, Arme Tan, Lina Cortes and Lily Anona.

Lilia Quindoza Santiago, herself a poet, creative writer and political detainee has put together a
significant contribution to the existing literature on the darkest side of Philippine history in recent
decades... Santiago's volume reminds us of the struggles of poets, writers, artists, intellectuals, cultural
workers and other groups in the shadows who came together to pull off "people power" the Filipino
contribution to the theory of modern revolutions."

She is an award-winning writer who teaches and does research on Philippine languages, popular cultures
and literatures. She is Assistant Professor of Ilokano at the Department of Indo Pacific Languages and
Literatures, University of Hawaii at Manoa.