Today is the 103rd birth anniversary of NVN Gonzalez, National Artist for Literature.
He was born on September 8, 1915, and he passed away on November 28, 1999.
Nestor Vicente Madali Gonzalez, better known as NVN Gonzalez, fictionist, essayist, poet, and teacher, articulated the Filipino spirit in rural, and urban landscapes.
He triumphed in appropriating the English language to express, reflect and shape Philippine culture and Philippine sensibility.
Among the many recognitions, he won the First Commonwealth Literary Contest in 1940, received the Republic Cultural Heritage Award in 1960, and the Gawad CCP Para sa Sining in 1990. The awards attest to his triumph in appropriating the English language to express, reflect and shape Philippine culture and Philippine sensibility.
He became U.P.’s International Writer In Residence and a member of the Board of Advisers of the U.P. Creative Writing Center.
In 1987, U.P. conferred on him the Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa, its highest academic recognition.
Major works of N.V.M Gonzalez include the following:
- The Winds of April, Seven Hills Away
- Children of the Ash-Covered Loam and Other Stories
- The Bamboo Dancers
- Look Stranger, on this Island Now
- Mindoro and Beyond: Twenty – One Stories
- The Bread of Salt and Other Stories
- Work on the Mountain
- The Novel of Justice: Selected Essays 1968-1994, A Grammar of Dreams and Other Stories.(NCCA)
You may want to read: