by PIA
Three national artists will grace the Fourth Philippine Writers' Festival dubbed as “Taboan,†a yearly writers’ conference spearheaded by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA).
These artists are Virgilio Almario, Bienvenido Lumbera, and F. Sionil Jose, together with 86 poets, playwrights, fictionists and novelists from all parts of the country who will converge at the Fontana Leisure Park in Clark Freeport Zone on February 9 to 11 for the festival.
The event will hold a literary exchange and book bazaar, panel discussions, lectures, literary readings, performances and for the first time in the history of Taboan, a food-and-culture tour.
‘Taboan’ which literary means the marketplace in Bisaya, seeks to serve as an avenue for the academic exchange of ideas among the country’s writers that will help hone their respective crafts and address issues currently affecting their field.
Almario will serve as the keynote speaker for the said event taking on the theme, “Rizal and the Filipino Imagination,†in which he will take a look at Jose Rizal as a writer and a cultural icon and how he has influenced Filipinos and artists across generations through his writings.
Lumbera and Jose will lead the discussions on how literature from Central Luzon reflects the connection between the region’s geography and agricultural production and its long and colorful history.
According to NCCA, this three-day conference aims to exchange the views on various topics including what writers under the age of 35 are doing and thinking and how they see themselves virtually vis-Ã -vis Rizal and the nation, literary criticism and literary standards, historical fiction or literature and national memory, writing from the regions, teaching literature, women and writing, writing as a profession, literature and new media and traditional texts in contemporary times.
Almario or better known by his pen name, Rio Alma, is a Filipino artist, poet, critic, translator, editor, teacher, and cultural manager.
Lumbera, on the other hand, is an awarad-winning poet, critic and dramatist and a recipient of the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communications. He had also won numerous literary awards, including the National Book Awards from the National Book Foundation, and the Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards.
Jose, meanwhile, is one of the most widely-read Filipino writers in the English language. His novels and short stories have been translated into 22 languages that include Dutch, Indonesian, Latvian, Korean, and Ukrainian.
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