Winners of Cirilo F. Bautista Prize for the Novel announced
THE WINNER of the Cirilo F. Bautista Prize for the Novel is Raymundo T. Pandan Jr., for his entry “When Will This War End?” Pandan will receive P100,000 and a winner’s certificate.
“Uberman” by Zeno Antonio Denolo has been selected for the Special Jury Prize. Denolo will receive P50,000 and a winner’s certificate.
Out of 73 qualified entries, eight titles made the short list. Aside from the winners, they were: “Dead Priest in the Creek” by Cecil ia Man guerraBrainard ,“Is ang Pelikula Tungkol sa mga Larawan ng mga Lumang Bulalakaw, mga Sirang Ferris Wheel, mga Nakalutang na Rooftop, mga Putol na Overpass at mga Wasak na Time Machine” by Rick Jay T. Cabillo, “Mga Bulong ng Anino at Tahimik” by Eric John Betita Villena, “Sa (Loob at Labas ng Kagila-gilalas na) Daigdig ni Atô” by Frank G. Rivera, “The Disappearance of the Rose” by Patria Rivera and “The Lady in Blue Ar mani” by Maria L. M. Fr es-Felix.
The distinguished Board of Judges was composed of National Artist Cirilo F. Bautista (chair), Katrina Tuvera, Roland Tolentino, Dean Francis Alfar and Joselito delos Reyes.
On the winning novel, the Board of Judges remarked, “Set in an alternative Philippines just emerging from Spanish rule, the novel is more than a chronicle of war, but ultimately a look at how myth, memory and history mingle to render what is heroic.”
On the Special Jury Prize novel, the Board of Judges commented, “The spectacular and the ludicrous are in ‘Uberman,’ a novel about a has-yet-tobe superhero. The novel’s success lies on several factors: a painful but pleasing critique of society; readable and contemporary; and its ability to let the public read, be entertained, while pondering the follies of being a hero.”
Pandan hails from Bacolod City, Negros Occidental. He served as dean of the College of Law of the University of St. La Salle in Bacolod City from 1998 to 2010, and continues to teach in the law school.
His poetry collection, “Illuminations and Sonorities” (2006) and children’s poetry collection “The Ocelot and Other Poems” (2012), won the Don Carlos Palanca Awards for Literature. He completed his law course at the top of his class at the University of Negros Occidental-Recoletos (1989, magna cum laude).
Denolo was born in Manila in 1990. He received his B.S. in Clinical Psychology (2010) from Polytechnic University of the Philippines.
The awards ceremony will be held on Nov. 14.
The fiction contest was organized by the De La Salle University (DLSU) Bienvenido N. Santos Creative Writing Center, and cosponsored by the DLSU Angelo King Institute for Economics and Business Studies and the DLSU Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation. It received the endorsement of the National Committee on the Literary Arts of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts.