Dalisay, a professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of the Philippines in Diliman is the first Filipino to be invited to participate in the annual gathering, which is now in its fifth year. He read excerpts from his second novel, Soledad’s Sister, which was published in 2008 and was shortlisted for the inaugural Man Asian Literary Prize.

Earlier in evening, Dalisay joined three other writers at a panel discussion called Prison Deform. All the panelists experienced being incarcerated—some as political detainees—and they shared the influence of such exile on their respective bodies of work. Dalisay was detained by the government of then President Ferdinand Marcos for his political activism during the early days of Martial Law.

He has published 18 books of fiction and nonfiction in both English and Filipino, 5 of which have received the National Book Award from the Manila Critics Circle. Dalisay has also received numerous other awards, including 16 Palanca Awards in 5 genres, which earned him a place in the Palanca Hall of Fame. He was also honored by the Cultural Center of the Philippines Centennial Honors List as one of the 100 most accomplished Filipino artists of the twentieth century.

"I wouldn’t be here without the recommendation of Jessica Hagedorn," Dalisay told the Asian Journal in a brief chat after the panel on prison deform.

Including the festival’s opening program and the prison deform panel, Dalisay was also scheduled to join the panel for Defiance: The Spirit of ‘89 which will discuss among others individual, nonviolent resistance to tyrannical authority.

"Call it shameless self-promotion, but we need this kind of exposure in the global literary market, which we’re not going to break into by sitting demurely on our fingers, waiting to be discovered. The best way to do that, I’ve often argued, is to write more novels in English, or to get our best novels in Filipino and our other languages translated into English," Dalisay wrote in his column for the Philippine Star on April 13, where he announced that he was taking part in this literary festival.

As a festival, PEN World Voices aims to advance literature and foster international literary fellowship by bringing together writers—a combination of renowned figures and new talent—from across the globe.

The festival, which will run until Sunday, May 3, will also take an in-depth look at the current financial crisis with some of the world’s greatest economic minds including Nobel Prize Laureate Paul Krugman; celebrate the life and work of Nobel Prize-winning dramatist Harold Pinter; feature the graphic novel through "An Afternoon with International Graphic Novelists" with leaders in the form such as Neil Gaiman and Yoshihiro Tatsumi and this year’s landmark Freedom to Write lecture, given by Egyptian literary hero Nawal El Saadawi.

( www.asianjournal.com )

( Published on May 1, 2005 in Asian Journal New York p. 5 )