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Cebuano literature includes both the oral and written literary forms Cebuano of colonial, pre-colonial and post-colonial Philippines.
While the majority of Cebuano writers are from the Visayas and Mindanao region, the best-known literary outlets for them, including the Bisaya Magasin, are based in Makati in Metro Manila. There is also a lively community of Cebuano-language writers based outside the country.
Cebuano literature, as much as most literature of the Philippines, started with fables and legends of the early people in the Philippines and colonial period, right down to the Mexican (Viceroyalty of New Spain) and Spanish influences. Although existence of a pre-Hispanic writing system in Luzon is attested, there is proof that baybayin was widespread in the Visayas. Most of the literature produced during that period was oral. They were documented by the Spanish Jesuit Fr. Ignatio Francisco Alzina. During the Spanish colonial period, the religious theme was predominant. Novenas and gozos, most notably the Bato Balani for the Santo Niño.
The first written Cebuano literature is Maming, by Vicente Sotto, the father of Cebuano literature. The story was published on July 16, 1900 in the first issue of his Ang Suga . Two years later Sotto wrote, directed, and produced the first Cebuano play, Elena . It was first performed at the Teatro Junquera (in what is now Cebu City) on May 18, 1902. The play established Sotto's reputation as a writer. The dedication of the play by the playwright reads, "To My Motherland, that you may have remembrance of the glorious Revolution that redeemed you from enslavement. I dedicate this humble play to you."
Vicente Sotto attacked the decadent forms of linambay [ clarification needed ] in his newspaper Ang Suga. He was challenged by a friend to write his own play as he was always attacking the linambay form. Sotto wrote the Cebuano Ang Paghigugma sa Yutang Nataohan (Love of the Native Land) as a response. The play was successful; Sotto organized the Compania de Aficionados Filipinos. Within the year, two more plays were written by Sotto: Elena, which deals of a girl's love for an insurrecto; and Aurora, which deals with a scandal involving the priests and nuns of the Colegio de la Immaculada Concepcion. Realism in Cebuano theater was stretched too much however; even Sotto himself was a victim of the movement he started, when prior to his running for mayor in 1907, a play by Teodulfo Ylaya entitled Ang Taban was released in 1906. The play dealt with a kidnap allegation involving Sotto.
During the American period, Ang Suga became the medium for publication of Cebuano writers. A community of writers slowly grow, to include the names of Florentino Rallos, Filomeno Veloso, Marcial Velez, Timoteo Castro, Segundo Cinco, Vicente Ranudo, Dionisio Jakosalem, Selestino Rodríguez, Filomeno Roble, Juan Villagonzalo, Leoncio Avila and Filemon Sotto. Most of these people were recognized for their achievements by the generation right after them, as evidenced by the use of their names for major streets in Cebu City, but their role in the furtherance of Cebuano culture is lost to subsequent generations[ why? ]. Juan Villagonzalo was the first to write a Cebuano novel.
Four typical novels on the love theme written by popular writers during the American period would represent the pre-war writers' subconscious but collective efforts in creating a common core of meanings and values in the face of new American culture. These are Felicitas by Uldarico Alviola in 1912, Mahinuklugong Paglubong Kang Alicia (The Sad Burial of Alicia) by Vicente Garces in 1924, Apdo sa Kagul-anan (Bitterness of Sorrow) by Angel Enemecio in 1928–29, and Ang Tinagoan (The Secret) by Vicente Rama in 1933–34. While Felicitas and Paglubong assert the value of marital fidelity and Apdo that of feminine chastity, Tinagoan challenges the emergent value that tolerates divorce. Such novels were seen as fictionalized renditions of their writers' stand or traditions and practices which were subjected to debate in the school stage and within the pages of periodicals.
The pre-war period in the Philippines is sometimes referred to as the Golden Age of Vernacular Literature, with the 1930s marking a boundary between two kinds of popular writing: the predominantly propagandistic and the more commercialized escapist literature that proliferated since the Commonwealth period. In the year 1930, Bisaya Magasin started publishing in Cebuano.
In 1936 Cebuano writers started publishing anthologies; readers engaged in amateur literary criticism; and complaints of plagiarism livened up the weekly news. Periodicals that featured creative writing mushroomed, although most of these were short-lived.
The generally considered first feminist Cebuano novel, Lourdes by Gardeopatra G. Quijano was serialized in the period May 26 to September 23, 1939 in Bag-ong Kusog (New Force), the most popular pre-war periodical. It has been predicted by no less than the late novelist and Philippine National Artist for Literature N. V. M. González that Philippine literature in English will die, leaving the regional literature (Ilokano, Waray, etc.). In the case of Cebuano literature, this has been the case.
Some of the prominent writers and poets in the Visayas and Mindanao who used to write in English have shifted to Cebuano. Among them are Davao-based Macario Tiu, Don Pag-usara, and Satur Apoyon, and Cebu-based Ernesto Lariosa (a Focus Philippines Poetry Awardee in 1975) and Rene Amper (a two-time Palanca awardee for English poetry). These giants of Cebuano literature are now regularly contributing to Bisaya Magasin; their shift to Cebuano writing has influenced young Cebu and Mindanao-based writers in English to follow suit (among them are Michael Obenieta, Gerard Pareja, Adonis Durado, Januar Yap, Jeneen Garcia, Marvi Gil, Delora Sales, Cora Almerino and Raul Moldez).
In 1991, Cebuano poet Ernesto Lariosa received a grant from the Cultural Center of the Philippines. He used the grant to introduce the 4-s in Cebuano poetry: social sense, sound and story. The language he used was slack, devoid of strong metaphors. He used the language of the home and of the streets. Writer-scholar Dr. Erlinda Alburo, director of the Cebuano Studies Center of the University of San Carlos noted in a forum sponsored by the university's theater guild in 2003 that the young writers (those given above) have given a new voice to Cebuano fiction. They have introduced modern writing styles, experimented with the Cebuano language and explored themes which have never been elaborated before by their predecessors.
Other influential Cebuano writers are Anito Beronilla, Vicente Vivencio Bandillo and Richel Dorotan, who is also known as Omar Khalid, his pen name.
The poetry of Vicente Bandillo, a native of Alcantara, Cebu, has surrealist elements.
There are now emerging number of publications featuring fiction and poetry in Cebuano. The ownership of the de facto literary journal, Bisaya Magasin , was transferred from the Chinese-owned Liwayway Publishing, Inc. to Napoleon Rama's Manila Bulletin Publishing in 2003, ushering a change in layout, acceptance policies and an increase in contributors' fees.
Aside from the reinvigoration of Bisaya Magasin, Cebu-based publishing houses have also started tabloids in the language (Banat News of Freeman Publications and SunStar SuperBalita of SunStar Publications). These tabloids have bigger circulation than their English counterparts. The U.P. National Writers Workshop every October and the Iligan National Writers Workshop every summer have reserved slots for Cebuano writers. In every edition of these workshops, there are Cebuano works that are being dissected or discussed by the panelists.
In 1998, the Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature opened the Cebuano literature category.
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Note that not all of these are classified entirely as works of literature, but these are records of the Cebuano language.
Cebuano is an Austronesian language spoken in the southern Philippines. It is natively, though informally, called by its generic term Bisayâ or Binisayâ and sometimes referred to in English sources as Cebuan. It is spoken by the Visayan ethnolinguistic groups native to the islands of Cebu, Bohol, Siquijor, the eastern half of Negros, the western half of Leyte, and the northern coastal areas of Northern Mindanao and the Zamboanga del Norte due to Spanish settlements during 18th century. In modern times, it has also spread to the Davao Region, Cotabato, Camiguin, parts of the Dinagat Islands, and the lowland regions of Caraga, often displacing native languages in those areas.
Erlinda Kintanar Alburo is a prolific contemporary Cebuano language scholar and promoter of the language. She is the former Director of the Cebuano Studies Center of the University of San Carlos, Philippines. She is an active member of Women in Literary Arts (WILA), and writes poetry both in English and cebuano. She teaches on the anthropology of linguistics. She has written 54 works in 4 languages.
Uldarico Aguilar Alviola Sr. was a Filipino Visayan civil servant, novelist, and editor from Cebu, Philippines. While he wrote in English and Spanish, his published works in the Cebuano language earned him the title "Dean of Cebuano Writers."
Vicente Yap Sotto was a Filipino playwright, journalist, and politician who served as a senator from 1946 to 1950. He also served in the House of Representatives from 1922 to 1925, representing Cebu's 2nd district. He was the main author of the Press Freedom Law.
Cebuano theater refers to the theater arts of the Cebuano people and those conducted in the Cebuano language. It also refers to contemporary productions and adaptations produced in Cebu City.
Hilda Suico Montayre was a Filipino writer who often used the pseudonym Rosa Montes. She considered fellow Cebuana writer Maria Kabigon to be a major influence.
Hope Sabanpan-Yu is a short story writer/poet from Cebu City, Philippines. She earned her doctorate degree in Comparative Literature from the University of the Philippines Diliman and her Master of Arts in English from the University of Calgary (Canada).
Adonis Durado is a Filipino poet, visual journalist, and graphic designer of Cebuano descent. His poetry collection "Who Steps Upon is Stepped Upon" was awarded the 2023 Philippine National Book Awards. He was born in 1975 in Cebu City, Philippines. He is a fine arts graduate from the University of San Carlos. In 2017, he received the Knight Fellowship from the School of Visual Communication at Ohio University. He is currently an Assistant Professor at the School of Visual Communication within Ohio University's Scripps College of Communication.
Bag-ong Kusog was a periodical in the Cebuano language that was in circulation before World War II. Established in 1915 in Cebu, Philippines, with its bilingual predecessor, Nueva Fuerza, it was published every Friday until it ceased operations at the outbreak of the war in 1941.
Vicente Rama was a Filipino Visayan legislator, publisher, and writer from Cebu, Philippines. Recognized as the Father of Cebu City, he authored the bill for its cityhood which was approved into law by October 20, 1936. He also founded the leading pre-war Cebuano periodical, Bag-ong Kusog.
Fernando Buyser, also known with his pseudonym Florpinas, was a Filipino Visayan poet, writer, and bishop of the Philippine Independent Church. He was a prolific writer and best known as the inventor of the Cebuano sonnet form called sonanoy and as the pioneer in the study Visayan folklore.
Vicente Ranudo was a Filipino Visayan writer, poet laureate, and Cebu provincial civil servant. He wrote for various pre-war periodicals, including the first Cebuano newspaper Ang Suga, and was considered the father of Cebuano poetry.
Amando Navarette Osório (1890–1946) was a Filipino Visayan poet, playwright, novelist, and Cebu deputy governor. His novel Daylinda, Ang Walay Palad was the first historical fiction in Cebuano literature and the third novel written in Cebuano language.
Florentino Suico was a Filipino Visayan public school teacher and prolific writer, fictionist, poet, and journalist from Cebu, Philippines. He was known for his historical fiction written in Cebuano language.
Marcelino M. Navarra was a Filipino Visayan editor, poet, and writer from Cebu, Philippines. He was regarded as the father of modern Cebuano short story for his use of realism and depictions of fictionalized version of his hometown, barrio Tuyom in Carcar, Cebu.
Buenaventura Perez Rodriguez was a playwright, the governor of Cebu, Philippines from 1937 until 1940, and a member of the House of Representatives for two terms. He was the first Cebu governor of the Philippine Commonwealth.
Florentino D. Tecson was a Filipino Visayan lawyer, politician, editor, writer, and labor leader from Cebu, Philippines. He edited pre-war Cebuano periodicals such as Bag-ong Kusog and published his own newspaper, Ang Mamumuo, and a book of fiction, Lingawon Ko Ikaw. A known labor leader, he was the president of Federacion Obrero de Filipinas. He served as councilor of Naga and Cebu City and was appointed as Vice Mayor of Cebu City (1954–1955).
Pio Abelgas Kabahar, also known as Piux A. Kabahar, was a Cebuano composer, playwright, journalist, and director. He was best known as a playwright, he was the director of the first Cebuano moving picture, Bertoldo ug Balodoy.
Vicente Arandia Gullas was a Filipino writer, lawyer, and educator from Cebu, Philippines. Founder of the Visayan Institute, he introduced innovation in educational system through the establishment of working student and study-now-pay-later schemes and of satellite schools to allow students from locations outside Cebu City. In 2019, he was hailed as one of the top 100 Cebuano personalities.
Ernesto Degumbis Lariosa, also known as Nyor Erning, was a Filipino Visayan writer, poet, and columnist from Cebu, Philippines and a three-time Palanca awardee in Cebuano short story. In 2003, he was recognized by the Cebu City government as the "Vanguard of Cebuano Literature".
