We invite you to an intimate gathering of colleagues and friends to remember Nestor Vicente Madali Gonzalez (NVM for short) on the centenary of his birth. People who knew him personally and those who only knew NVM through his books, please join us. Those who never knew him or have never heard of him, let us introduce him to you.
NVM was born in Romblon, Philippines on Sept 8, 1915 and he grew up in Mindoro. He passed away on November 28, 1999 at the age of 84 in Manila. NVM was a Filipino novelist, short story writer, essayist and poet. He wrote five novels, eight short fiction and two essays. His books have been published in Pilipino, English and translated into Chinese, German, Russian and Indonesian.
He was on the Board of Advisers of Likhaan, the University of the Philippines Creative Writing Center, Founding Editor of The Diliman Review and first president of the Philippine Writers’ Association. He attended creative writing classes under Wallace Stegner and Katherine Anne Porter at Stanford University, and taught in the Philippines at UST, PWU and UP. He also taught in the US at UC-Santa Barbara, CSU-Hayward, the University of Washington, UCLA and UC-Berkeley.
The following will share their memories of NVM: Dr Paulino Lim, author and professor emeritus, CSU-Long Beach; multi-awarded author Cecilia Manguerra Brainard; Dr Barbara Gaerlan, Asst. Director of UCLA Center for Southeast Asian Studies; Allan G. Aquino, who lectures at CSU-Northridge and a former student of NVM at UCLA, and Cecilia Ochoa, a participant at the NVM Writers’ Workshop conducted by author Peter Bacho.
Dr Michael Gonzalez of the Philippine Studies Department, City College of San Francisco and Director/Founder of NVM Gonzalez Writers’ Workshop will show an excerpt from a short film on his Dad, ‘A Story Yet To Be Told’ by Jerome Academia and Russell Leung. A trained classic guitarist, he will also play his Dad’s favorite music, as well as speak about his Dad’s books.The works of NVM are rich in imagery of nature, and his stories are set in natural scenes of rural Philippines and the islands. Written long before we were concerned with ecology and climate changes, they showed his own personal awareness of the environment way ahead of our time.
The following is a list of his books, Novels: The Winds of April, 1941; A Season of Grace, 1956; The Bamboo Dancers, 1988; The Land and the Rain, and The Happiest Boy in the World. Short Fiction: Seven Hills Away, 1947; Children of the Ash-Covered Loam and Other Stories, 1954, republished 1992; Look, Stranger, On This Island Now, 1964; Selected Stories, 1964; Mindoro and Beyond: Twenty-One Stories, 1981 and republished 1989; The Bread of Salt and Other Stories, 1993; A Grammar of Dreams and Other Stories, 1997 and The Tomato Game, 1993. Essays: A Novel of Justice: Selected Essays 1968-1994 and Work on the Mountain, 1996.
Event Sponsors: Philippine Expressions Bookshop, Friends of the Echo Park Branch Library and UCLA Asian American Studies Center.
Community Partners: Fil Am Arts, Fil Am Library, Filipino American Service Group (FASGI) and the Filipino American Press Club of Los Angeles (est. 1978).
The event is free and open to everyone but RSVP is requested.
Email: linda@philbooks.us or call (310) 514-9139.
The program is part of the ongoing outreach efforts of Philippine Expressions Bookshop and a tribute to NVM and his wife, Narita Manuel Gonzalez who passed away recently at age 94. Both have been mentors to a lot of Filipino and Filipino American writers, and most especially, to Linda Nietes, owner of the bookshop.
MABUHAY!
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