Antonio Abad y Mercado (May 10, 1894 – April 20, 1970), was a prominent Filipino poet, fictionist, playwright and essayist.
Personal life
Antonio Abad y Mercado was born in Barili, Cebu, under the
Captaincy General of the Philippines
The Captaincy General of the Philippines ( es, Capitanía General de Filipinas ; tl, Kapitaniya Heneral ng Pilipinas) was an administrative district of the Spanish Empire in Southeast Asia governed by a Governor-General of the Philippines, gove ...
, on 10 May 1894. He was educated at the
Colegio-Seminario de San Carlos in Cebu City. He married Kampampangan teacher Jesusa Henson y Aquino., and had three sons:
Gémino, Antonio Jr., and Edmundo.
Career
Abad frequently wrote in both, his native language, Cebuano, and Spanish. He was a strong advocate of the Spanish language and Hispanic-Filipino culture when it was discouraged during the American colonial period in the Philippines. Abad was one of the leading contributors of Hispanic-Filipino literature during his time, producing novels and plays criticizing the occupation of the islands by the Americans. His works would later be known as part of the Golden Age of Fil-Hispanic Literature (1898-1941). Two of his novels went on to win the Premio Zóbel, the oldest literary award in the Philippines, in 1928 and 1929.
Abad taught Spanish at the
Far Eastern University
Far Eastern University (Filipino language, Filipino: ''Pamantasan ng Malayong Silanganan''), also referred to by its acronym FEU, is a Private university, private non-sectarian Liberal arts college, liberal arts university in Manila, Philippines ...
. In 1952, he moved to the
University of the Philippines Diliman
, image = University of The Philippines seal.svg
, image_size = 175px
, caption = Official Logo of UP Diliman
, motto = Honor and Excellence
, established = February 12, 194 ...
to found the Department of Spanish (now, the Department of European Languages) at the then, College of Liberal Arts. He headed the department until his retirement in 1959. One of his last works, a multilingual dictionary of
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...
,
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
,
Cebuano,
Ilocano and
Kapampangan Kapampangan, Capampañgan or Pampangan may refer to:
*Kapampangan people of the Philippines
*Kapampangan language
Kapampangan or Pampangan is an Austronesian language, and one of the eight major languages of the Philippines. It is the primary ...
, remained unfinished after his death on 20 April 1970.
Novels
* ''El Último Romántico'' (1928)
* ''La Oveja de Nathán'' (1929)
* ''El Campeón'' (1940)
* ''La Vida Secreta de Daniel Espeña'' (1960)
Plays
* ''Dagohoy'', 1940 Philippine Commonwealth Literary Award.
Essays
* ''De la hora Transeúnete'', 1940, Philippine Commonwealth Literary Award.
1894 births
1970 deaths
Cebuano writers
Filipino novelists
20th-century Filipino poets
Writers from Cebu
Spanish-language writers of the Philippines
University of San Carlos alumni
University of the Philippines faculty
20th-century novelists
Filipino male poets
20th-century male writers
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