Post-war Philippine fiction in English

摘要

PHILIPPINE fiction in English is one of the many consequences of Spain's cession ofthe islands to the United States after the war of 1898. The coming of the Americansmtroduced a new language and a new culture to the people. During the early part of thetwentieth century Spanish continued to dominate as the literary idiom, but works werealso written in the vernacular languages such as Tagalog (Pilipino), Ilokano andCebuano. Writers of this period who deserve mention are the pioneering novelist L. K.Santos, Fanny A. Garcia, a noted writer of short stories and fiction in Pilipino, Jose F.Lacaba, who was a poet and a journalist in both English and Pilipino, and BienvenidoL. Lumbera, a literary critic and authority on Philippine vernacular literature.However, 1908 saw the establishment of the University of the Philippines which, asthe first English university in the country, became deeply involved in the rise ofFilipino literature in English. English became the medium of communication and ofinstruction in schools and by the 1930s was also increasingly popular as the language ofliterature.