“As artists, we must not go down to the level of the masa; we should bring them up, intellectualize our languages, create classics out of our folk arts. We can do this if we are true to our roots and strive for excellence.”

Filipino writer

Francisco Sionil José was a Filipino writer, born in 1924 and died in 2022. He was widely read in English and was named a National Artist of the Philippines for Literature in 2001. His novels and short stories examine the social roots of class conflict and colonialism in Filipino society. Written in English, his work was translated into 28 languages, and he was often spoken of as a leading Filipino contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature.