“November is auspicious in so many parts of the country: the rice harvest is already in, the weather starts to cool, and the festive glow which precedes Christmas has began to brighten the landscape.”

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.