Francisco
Arcellana
National Artist for Literature (1990)
Francisco Arcellana, writer, poet, essayist, critic, journalist
and teacher, is one of the most important progenitors of the modern
Filipino short story in English. He pioneered the development
of the short story as a lyrical prose-poetic form. For Arcellana,
the pride of fiction is "that it is able to render truth,
that is able to present reality". Arcellana has kept alive
the experimental tradition in fiction, and has been most daring
in exploring new literary forms to express the sensibility of
the Filipino people. A brilliant craftsman, his works are now
an indispensable part of a tertiary-level-syllabi all over the
country. Arcellana's published books are Selected Stories (1962),
Poetry and Politics: The State of Original Writing in English
in the Philippines Today (1977), The Francisco Arcellana Sampler
(1990).
Some of his short stories are Frankie, The Man Who Would Be Poe,
Death in a Factory, Lina, A Clown Remembers, Divided by Two, and
his poems being The Other Woman, This Being the Third Poem This
Poem is for Mathilda, To Touch You and I Touched Her, among others.
Source:
National Commission
for Culture and the Arts Web site
URL: http://www.ncca.gov.ph/phil%20profile/philprof_ntl-literature.htm
