From the same column as Jose's comment on the readership of Philippine literature (below), comes his review of Mila D Aguilar's Chronicle of a Life Foretold.
“Mila D. Aguilar (nom de guerre Clarita Roja) was a University of the Philippines teacher. She continues to be a teacher and more. She was very much involved with the revolutionary opposition to Marcos and the oligarchy for which she paid dearly, with years in prison. She continues to resist and her resistance now is strengthened by her religious faith and her continuing devotion to her art, as this brilliant collection of poetry — her latest — illustrates.
I have admired Mila since the ’70s when I became aware of her work, and this admiration continues to this very day when so many of her contemporaries have fallen by the wayside or succumbed to the pleasures of a bourgeois life.
I also remember fondly her publisher — the still struggling, fighting, persevering bookstore Popular, whose founder Joaquin Po I met in the ’40s and whose friendship I have always valued.”
No comments:
Post a Comment