Philippine literature in English has its roots in the efforts of the United States, then engaged in a war with Filipino nationalist forces at the end of the 19th century. By 1901, public education was institutionalized in the Philippines, with English serving as the medium of instruction. That year, around 600 educators in the S.S. Thomas were tasked to replace the soldiers who had been serving as the first teachers. Outside the academe, the wide availability of reading materials, such as books and newspapers in English, helped Filipinos assimilate the language quickly. Today, 78.53% of the population can understand or speak English.
Cecilia Manguerra Brainard is an author and editor of 20 books. She co-founded PAWWA or Philippine American Women Writers and Artists; and also founded PALH or Philippine American Literary House. Brainard's works include the World War II novel, When the Rainbow Goddess Wept, The Newspaper Widow, Magdalena, and Woman With Horns and Other Stories. She edited several anthologies including Fiction by Filipinos in America, Contemporary Fiction by Filipinos in America, and two volumes of Growing Up Filipino I and II, books used by educators.
Jose Y. Dalisay Jr. is a Filipino writer. He has won numerous awards and prizes for fiction, poetry, drama, non-fiction and screenwriting, including 16 Palanca Awards.
Bino A. Realuyo is a Filipino-American novelist, poet, community organizer and adult educator. He was born and raised in Manila, Philippines but spent most of his adult life in New York City. He is the author of a novel, The Umbrella Country, a poetry collection, The Gods We Worship Live Next Door, and the editor of two anthologies.
Dean Francis Alfar, is a Filipino playwright, novelist and writer of speculative fiction. His plays have been performed in venues across the country, while his articles and fiction have been published both in his native Philippines and abroad, such as in Strange Horizons, Rabid Transit, The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror and the Exotic Gothic series.
Alfred A. Yuson, also known as Krip Yuson, is a Filipino author of novels, poetry and short stories.
Néstor Vicente Madali González was a Filipino novelist, short story writer, essayist and, poet. Conferred as the National Artist of the Philippines for Literature in 1997.
Lakambini A. Sitoy is a Filipino author, journalist and teacher. Her novel Sweet Haven was published in French translation by Albin Michel as Les filles de Sweethaven in October 2011, in the original English by the New York Review of Books in 2014, and by Anvil Publishing Inc. in 2015. She received the David T.K. Wong fellowship from the University of East Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom, in 2003.
Epifanio San Juan Jr., also known as E. San Juan Jr., is a known Filipino American literary academic, Tagalog writer, Filipino poet, civic intellectual, activist, writer, essayist, video/film maker, editor, and poet whose works related to the Filipino Diaspora in English and Filipino writings have been translated into German, Russian, French, Italian, and Chinese. As an author of books on race and cultural studies, he was a "major influence on the academic world". He was the director of the Philippines Cultural Studies Center in Storrs, Connecticut in the United States. In 1999, San Juan received the Centennial Award for Achievement in Literature from the Cultural Center of the Philippines because of his contributions to Filipino and Filipino American Studies.
Colin Channer is a Jamaican writer, often referred to as "Bob Marley with a pen," due to the spiritual, sensual, social themes presented from a literary Jamaican perspective. His first two full-length novels, Waiting in Vain and Satisfy My Soul, bear the titles of well known Marley songs. He has also written the short story collection Passing Through, and the novellas I'm Still Waiting and The Girl with the Golden Shoes. Channer's poetry collection Console was included in The New Yorker's The Best Books of 2023.
Luisa A. Igloria is a Filipina American poet and author of various award-winning collections, and is the most recent Poet Laureate of Virginia (2020-2022).
Barbara Jane Reyes is an American poet whose work "explores the translatable and untranslatable collisions of writing, self and culture."
Ophelia Alcantara Dimalanta was a Filipino poet, editor, author, and academician. One of the country's most respected writers, Dimalanta published several books of poetry, criticism, drama, and prose and edited various literary anthologies. In 1999, she received Southeast Asia's highest literary honor, the S.E.A. Write Award.
Edgar Calabia Samar is a poet and novelist from San Pablo City, Philippines. He has received the Philippine National Book Awards for his novels and book of criticism, and the Palanca Awards for his poetry collections and short fiction. His novels Sa Kasunod ng 909, Si Janus Silang at ang Tiyanak ng Tabon and Si Janus Silang at ang Labanang Manananggal-Mambabarang all won the Philippine National Book Awards for Best Novel in a Philippine Language in 2012, 2015, and 2016, respectively. He has been awarded the PBBY-Salanga Writer's Prize, the NCCA Writer's Prize for the Novel, the Gantimpalang Collantes sa Sanaysay and the Gawad Surian sa Tula.
Eugene Gloria is a Filipino-born American poet.
My Sad Republic is a 2000 Philippine English-language novel written by Filipino novelist Eric Gamalinda. The novel won for Gamalinda a Philippine Centennial Literary Prize in 1998. The 392-page novel was published by the Philippine Centennial Commission, the University of the Philippines Press, and the UP Creative Writing Center. My Sad Republic is the fourth novel written by Gamalinda. The theme of the novel is "love, obsession, and loss" occurring during the Philippine Revolution against the Spanish colonial regime of the Philippines, and during the Philippine–American War.
M. Evelina Galang is an American novelist, short story writer, editor, essayist, educator, and activist of Filipina descent. Her novel One Tribe won the AWP Novel of the Year Prize in 2004.
Nick Carbó is a Filipino-American writer from Legazpi, Albay, Philippines. Carbó writes poetry, essays, and edits magazines and anthologies. He is primarily known for his book of poetry titled Secret Asian Man (2000) Tia Chucha Press which won the Asian American Writers Workshop's Readers Choice Award. He also won the 2005 Calatagan Award from the Philippine American Writers & Artists for his book Andalusian Dawn (2004) Cherry Grove Collections. His most noted award is the 1999 Gregory Millard/New York City Department of Cultural Affairs New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship.
Luis H. Francia is a Filipino American poet, playwright, journalist, and nonfiction writer. His memoir, Eye of the Fish: A Personal Archipelago, won both the 2002 PEN Open Book and the 2002 Asian American Literary Awards.
Dominador “Dom” Ibarra Ilio was a poet and professor born in Malinao, Capiz. He is considered a pioneer of Philippine literature in English as a recognized poet and author both in the Philippines and in the United States. He was an engineer by profession.
