Nick Joaquin (Nicomedes Marquez Joaquin) aka Quijano de Manila b. Paco, Manila 4 May 1917. National Artist in Literature. Born to Leocadio Joaquin and Salome Marquez, he attended the public elementary school and Mapa High School in Intramuros, Manila, but dropped out after three years of secondary education. In 1935, at the age of 17, he published his first poem in the Tribune , the WWII Manila Times . Serafin Lanot, the Tribune's poetry editor, liked the poem very much and went to congratulate the poet when he came to collect his fee, but the shy and elusive Joaquin ran away. St the time, the boy was a proofreader in the composing department at the T-V-T (Taliba Vanguardia Tribune). Later Joaquin's “Three Generations” appeared in the Herald Midweek Magazine . A short story published in 1945 in the Philippines Free Press was chosen as the best of the year; in 1949, he again won in a literary contest held by the Dominicans. In the midst of his growing fame as a writer, Joaquin entered St. Albert College in Hong Kong, a seminary under the Dominicans. He found the place conducive to writing, but left the seminary in 1950, after his superiors refused to allow him to write. Upon his return to Manila, he resumed his literary career. Joaquin Contributed stories to Philippines Free Press , which hired him as proofreader in 1950. Besides the weekly investigative reports and feature articles he did under the name Quijano de Manila, he served a literary editor. As a journalist, he was able to travel extensively abroad and received several grants. In 1957, under a fellowship from the Harper Publishing Company, he stayed in the United States and, later, in Mexico to write a novel. The result was one of his most significant works, The Woman Who Had Two Navels. In it, his favorite themes converged- the clash between the spiritual and the mundane, between tradition and modernity, between appearance and reality, and between male and female. In 1970 labor problems brewed in the Free Press . Joaquin came out on the side of the workers and resigned over management's attempts to break the union. Together with the other staffers who left, he joined the Asia- Philippines Leader in 1971 and served as its editor- in- chief. Upon the declaration of Martial Law, Joaquin found himself out of regular job as the Leader and other newspapers and magazines critical of the Marcos administration were closed down. He kept himself busy compiling his Philippines Free Press articles for a series of books, writing new plays and stories, publishing feature articles from time to time, accepting commissions for biographies, and running a column, “Small Beer,” in one newspaper. In 1990 he assumed the editorship of the newly opened Philippine Graphic . Joaquin has authored more than two dozen books. Among the more significant are: Prose and Poems , 1952, his first collection of poetry and fiction, which also include a play, A Portrait of the Artist as Filipino , 1966; Selected Stories , 1962; La Naval de Manila and Other Essays , 1964; and the Complete Poems and Plays of Jose Rizal , 1976, Translation of Rizal's works in English. In 1977 his compiled works as journalist and historian appeared in a pocketbook series: Nora Aunor & Other Profiles, Ronnie Poe & Other Silhouettes, Reportage on Lovers, Reportage on Crime, Amalia Fuentes & Other Etchings, Gloria Diaz & Other Delineations and Doveglion and Other Cameos . The book A Question of Heroes , a thought-provoking and controversial look into history, also came out in 1977. Tropical Baroque , 979, is a collection of his often- performed plays. It includes A Portrait of the Artist as Filipino (An Elegy in Three Scenes), Tatarin, Father and Sons, and The Beateas. Portrait was first staged on 25 March 1955 at the Aurora Gardens in Intramuros, Manila and later produced in other parts of the Philippines and in other countries. It was also made into a film directed by the late Lamberto Avellana, National Artist in Film. Other important books by Joaquin include: Manila: Sin City and Other Chronicles and Language of the Street and Other Essays , 1980; Cave and Shadows, 1983; Collected Verse , 1987; Culture and History , 1988; and Manila, My Manila , 1991. Joaquin has three awards from the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature: First prize for the short story, “La Vidal,” 1958, and for “Doña Jeronima, 1965”; and for the three-act play, "The Beateas", 1976. His books which won the Manila Critics Circles' National Book Awards are: The Aquinos of Tarlac: An Essay in History as Three Generations , 1983; The ‘Quartet of the Tiger Moon: Scenes from the People Power Apocalypse , 1986; Culture and History: Occasional Notes on the Process of Philippine Becoming , 1988, and The World of Damian Domingo: 19 th Century Manila , co-written with Luciano P.R. Santiago and Jaime Ongpin: The Enigma: The Profile of a Filipino as Manager both in 1990. Joaquin has influenced and inspired generations of Filipino writers in English. He received the ESSO Journalism Award several times, the first Stonehill Fellowship for The Woman Who Had Two Navels in 1960, the Republic Cultural Heritage Award for literature I 1961, and the Patnubay ng Sining at Lakinangan Award from the city government of Manila in 1964. He was conferred the title National Artist in Literature in 1976. |
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