The winners of the annual Nick Joaquin Literary Awards (NJLA) were feted in the City by the Bay on September 20 at the Citystate Tower Hotel on Mabini St. in Ermita, Manila.
Journalist and poet Mark Angeles was named Poet of the Year.
The short fiction winners are: Sydney Paige Guerrero, first prize, for her short story “Matches”; Vincen Gregory Yu, second prize, for his story “Perfect Sons” and; Patricia Celina Ngo, third prize, for her story “The Sky Painter.” The prizes for the Fiction winners are: P50,000 for the first prize, P30,000 for the second prize and P20,000 for the third prize, as well as framed certificates and medals.
Honorable Mention recognition was also given to three authors whose short stories were on the panel of judges’ shortlists: Cesar Miguel G. Escano, for his story, “Amira”; Hans Pieter L. Arao, for his story “Etymologies;” and Jenny Ortuoste, for her story “Yule Tree.”
The NJLA was once known as the Philippines Graphic Literary Awards. It was renamed to honor the late Graphic editor in chief and literary editor Nick Joaquin, who is a National Artist for Literature and a recipient of the Ramon Magsaysay Award for his journalism, after Joaquin’s death in 2004.
ALC, UST partner on research for arts and culture
The awards night was highlighted by the awarding of research grants for the 2019 UST-Ambassador Antonio L. Cabangon Chua Research award for the Humanities to Carlomar Arcangel Daoana of Ateneo de Manila University and Maria Alexandria Iñigo Chua of UST.
The grant is given for research topics on notable Thomasian artists who have contributed to enriching Philippine arts and culture. The final research output is expected to include the critical biography of the selected artist and a detailed documentation of his or her works.
Daona’s research project is titled “Biography as Destiny: Danilo Dalena and His Pursuit of the Everyman,” while Chua’s research project is “Raul Sunico: The Virtuoso in the Performance of the Filipino Identity.”
The research awards were presented to Daoana and Chua by Fr. Jesus M. Miranda, Jr., OP, who represented UST Rector the Very Rev. Fr. Herminio V. Dagohoy, OP.
Besides this research award, Daoana and Chua will also receive an incentive of P150,000 each. They will be responsible for completing their respective research project under the supervision of a senior scholar/specialist on arts and culture, and their study will be presented to the public in April 2020.
This research award is endowed by the Cabangon Chua Family and the ALC Group of Companies. This collaboration will run for a decade, during which the research award process is expected to produce a robust output of scholarly work to serve as a lasting resource that is accessible to students of the arts, and to the general public.
Literary community
There was a storm, but Typhoon Nimfa and the traffic the storm spawned did not keep the literary community from being there.
National Artist for Literature F Sionil Jose and his wife Tessie graced the event, along with Czech Ambassador Jana Sediva-Treybalova, Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo of the University of Santo Tomas Center for Creative Writing and Literary Studies UST-CCWLS) and UST professor and author Joselito D. Delos Reyes.
Also there were the NJLA’s very first Poet of the Year, Marne L. Kilates, Oarhouse Pub owner and photojournalist Ben Razon, New York Times contributor and Man Asian Literary Prize winner Miguel Syjuco, radio show hosts and poets Kooky Tuazon and Marty Tengco of Jam 88.3, and National Book Awards winner and University of the Philippines professor Rolando Tolentino. As always, columnist and Gawad Dangal ng Lahi awardee Krip Yuson, who chaired the panel of judges for the Asia-Pacific leg of the NJLA launched earlier this year graced the event with his presence.
Fictionist Nikki Alfar, NJLA 2016 winner Kate Osias, poets Camilo Mendoza Villanueva Jr. and Fidel Rillo were also there, along with the lady chiefs of two book publishing houses: Anvil Publishing general manager Andrea Pasion-Flores and Ateneo de Manila University Press chief Maria Karina Africa Bolasco. Doctor and author Joti Tabula, and Belle Tiongco and Chris Thomas of Football for Humanity, as well as former Graphic managing editor Marianne Carandang, International Pen in the Philippines board member Lito Zulueta, and Philippine Star metro editor Dulce Sanchez. Novelist Zahara Depaling, her co-author for “The Merovingian,” Renato Tranquilino and Winford Hotel’s Jami Ledesma were also there.
Judges and sponsors
The NJLA judges are all distinguished writers, many of them past winners of literary awards, including the NJLA.
This year, the chair of our panel of judges is Susan Severino Lara, a recipient of the Unyon ng Manunulat ng Pilipino’s Gawad Balagtas award given by UMPIL to Filipino writers who have made considerable contributions to Philippine literature, as well as for their keen pens.
Lara has won in the prestigious Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature and the Focus Literary Awards. Her short fiction collection, Letting Go and Other Stories, won a National Book Award, and her fiction and essays have been included in several anthologies. She held the Irwin Lee Professorial Chair in Creative Writing at the Ateneo de Manila University in 2011, and she served as panelist in various writing workshops, including the Ateneo Institute of Literary Arts and Practices (AILAP) Workshop, the DLSU’s Malate Writers Workshop, the University of St. La Salle’s Iyas Writers Workshop, and the Silliman University National Writers Workshop. She has also served as judge for the Palanca Awards and the National Book Awards, as well as the NJLA.
The panel of judges also includes multi-awarded fiction and creative non-fiction author Angelo “Sarge” Lacuesta and award-winning playwright and fictionist Dean Francis Alfar. Lacuesta and Alfar are also the editors and publishers of the Maximum Volume series collating the best in Philippine speculative fiction each year.
The awards night host was BusinessMirror Motoring editor Tet Andolong, while the spoken word group The Makatas performed a Balagtasan to close the program.
The NJLA competition has stringent processes of selection and judging that present Filipino writers with a challenge, as well as a good opportunity to get their work out to the Graphic’s audience of readers.
This event was made possible with the sponsorship support of Citystate Tower Hotel, Prulife UK, the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation, Resorts World Manila, Sheraton Manila Hotel, the Winford Manila Resorts and Casino, Cardinal Santos Medical Center, Mondelez Philippines Inc., Fundador, the Primer Group of Companies, SM, Landbank, and the Lucio Tan Group.