Mika Angela D.

Licudo
Stem B-2

Literature
Nestor Vicente Madali
Gonzalez
(September 8, 1915 –
November 28, 1990)

A Filipino novelist, short

story writer, essayist and
poet. Conferred as the
National Artist of the
Philippines for Literature in
1997.

(September 8, 1915 – November 28, 1990)

Gonzalez is one of the popular and successful Filipino writer but the journey on becoming one is
not easy for him. He came from a family of educators in which his mother is a teacher while his
father is a school supervisor. He was born in Romblon but raised in one of the province of
Mindoro. This locale had a seminal influence on his writing, as the titles of his works “Hunger in
Barok,” “Life and Death in a Mindoro Kaingin,” and Mindoro and Beyong suggest. He
experienced delivering meat door-to-door across provincial villages and municipalities to help
his father when he was a teenager. Aside from it, he was also a musician. Through playing the
violin during a Chinese funeral in Romblon, he earned his first peso. As he finished his
secondary level, Gonzalez take an exam at University of the Philippines but failed to pass. Until
he attended his college at National University but he was unable to finish his undergraduate
degree. But in 1949, he became the first to teach college courses without holding a degree. He
also got the opportunity not only to teach to different universities in the Philippines but also in
some other country. González wrote for the Philippine Graphic and later edited for the Evening
News Magazine and Manila Chronicle. His first published essay appeared in the Philippine
Graphic and his first poem in Poetry in 1934. González made his mark in the Philippine writing
community as a member of the Board of Advisers of Likhaan: the University of the Philippines
Creative Writing Center, founding editor of The Diliman Review and as the first president of the
Philippine Writers' Association. González attended creative writing classes under Wallace
Stegner and Katherine Anne Porter at Stanford University. On 14 April 1987, the University of
the Philippines conferred on N.V.M. González the degree of Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris
causa, "For his creative genius in shaping the Philippine short story and novel, and making a
new clearing within the English idiom and tradition on which he established an authentic
vocabulary, ...For his insightful criticism by which he advanced the literary tradition of the
Filipino and enriched the vocation for all writers of the present generation...For his visions and
auguries by which he gave the Filipino sense and sensibility a profound and unmistakable script
read and reread throughout the international community of letters..."