Jose Carillo's Forum

NOTABLE WORKS BY OUR VERY OWN

This page features outstanding works of Filipino writers in English, both past and present. Whenever the need or opportunity arises, a notable work—whether essay, speech, short story, poetry, play, or excerpt from a novel—will be presented here either in its full text or through a link to a website that carries it.

I hope you’ll not only enjoy the offerings of this series but also learn from their felicitous use of the English language!

Jose Carillo

The quiet, little pleasures of reading Bienvenido Santos’ prose

One of the quiet, little pleasures of my early college days was reading the stories from a small, yellow-covered book bought for me by my eldest sister—whether for Christmas or for my birthday I now couldn’t recall. The book was You Lovely People by Bienvenido Santos, and, if my memory still serves me right, it had a charming story that starts with the line “In Hays, Kansas, I saw some German prisoners…”, then goes on to describe the progression of the seasons in the United States in precise, lilting language. Santos’ prose is so relaxed, so easy-to-read that it became a habit of mine to read him aloud—but always in hushed tones—as practice in my English speech. In time, though, I thought that I had outgrown his simple, uncomplicated storytelling style, so I went on to reading short-stories and novels with more ambitious and more complex ways of using the English language...

F. Sionil Jose

In the full feature on Bienvenido Santos inside the Forum, we have provided links to parts of his The Day the Dancers Came and Distances: In Time.

Click here to read the full feature (requires registration to view & post)




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Page last modified: 12 December, 2009,12:25 a.m.