Ninotchka Rosca (born December 17, 1946, in the

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

) is a

Filipina Filipinos ( tl, Mga Pilipino) are the people who are citizens of or native to the Philippines. The majority of Filipinos today come from various Austronesian ethnolinguistic groups, all typically speaking either Filipino, English and/or other ...

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...

, author, journalist, and human rights activist. best known for her 1988 novel '' State of War'' and for her activism, especially during the Martial Law dictatorship of former

Philippine President The president of the Philippines ( fil, Pangulo ng Pilipinas, sometimes referred to as ''Presidente ng Pilipinas'') is the head of state, head of government and chief executive of the Philippines. The president leads the executive branch of t ...

Ferdinand Marcos Ferdinand Emmanuel Edralin Marcos Sr. ( , , ; September 11, 1917 – September 28, 1989) was a Filipino politician, lawyer, dictator, and kleptocrat who was the 10th president of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986. He ruled under martial ...

.Ninotchka Rosca Biography
/ref> Rosca has been described as "one of the major players in the saga of Filipina American writers." Rosca was a recipient of the

American Book Award The American Book Award is an American literary award that annually recognizes a set of books and people for "outstanding literary achievement". According to the 2010 awards press release, it is "a writers' award given by other writers" and "the ...

in 1993 for her novel '' Twice Blessed''.''(...) "American Book Award winning novelist, Ninotchka Rosca" (...)''
amazon.com She is active in AF3IR

the Mariposa Center for Change, Sisterhood is Global and the initiating committee of the Mariposa Alliance (Ma-Al), a multi-racial, multi-ethnic women's activist center for understanding the intersectionality of class, race and gender oppression, toward a more comprehensive practice of women's liberation.

Biography

Education and early career

Rosca received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English (Comparative Literature) at the

University of the Philippines The University of the Philippines (UP; fil, Pamantasan ng Pilipinas Unibersidad ng Pilipinas) is a state university system in the Philippines. It is the country's national university, as mandated by Republic Act No. 9500 (UP Charter of 200 ...

, and became a journalist working for various Philippine publications after she graduated. She was taking up Asian Studies (Khmer Civilization) for her graduate studies at the time she had to leave the Philippines because of the Marcos Dictatorship.

Imprisonment and exile during Martial Law

Rosca was one of many Philippine journalists who became

political prisoners A political prisoner is someone imprisoned for their political activity. The political offense is not always the official reason for the prisoner's detention. There is no internationally recognized legal definition of the concept, although nu ...

under the dictatorial government of

in the Philippines. She was detained for six months, and was interrogated several times before her release. On getting out of prison, she took a job with an investment company in Manila while raising funds to help people hide from Marcos' security forces. When she received a tip that she was about to be arrested a second time, she sought help from a cultural attache at the U.S. Embassy, who helped Rosca get out of the Philippines by getting her into an international writers program in the United States. While in exile, Rosca was designated as one of the 12 ''Asian-American Women of Hope'' by the Bread and Roses Cultural Project. These women were chosen by scholars and community leaders for their courage, compassion, and commitment in helping to shape society. They are considered role models for young people of color, who, in the words of Gloria Steinem, "have been denied the knowledge that greatness looks like them. In 1986 she returned to the Philippines to report on the final days of Marcos.

Later activism

Rosca has worked with

Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...

and the

PEN American Center PEN America (formerly PEN American Center), founded in 1922 and headquartered in New York City, is a nonprofit organization that works to defend and celebrate Freedom of speech, free expression in the United States and worldwide through the ad ...

. Rosca was also a founder and the first national chair of the GABNet, the largest and only US-Philippines women's solidarity mass organization, which has evolved into AF3IRM. She is the international spokesperson of GABNet's Purple Rose Campaign against the trafficking of women, with an emphasis on Filipinas. She was at the United Nations'

Fourth World Conference on Women The Fourth World Conference on Women: Action for Equality, Development and Peace was the name given for a conference convened by the United Nations during 4–15 September 1995 in Beijing, China. At this conference, governments from around the ...

which took place in Beijing, China, and at the UN's

World Conference on Human Rights The World Conference on Human Rights was held by the United Nations in Vienna, Austria, on 14 to 25 June 1993. It was the first human rights conference held since the end of the Cold War. The main result of the conference was the Vienna Declarati ...

in Vienna, Austria. At the latter, she drafted the Survivors Statement, signed by four Nobel Prize winners and hundreds of former prisoners of conscience. This statement first applied the phrase "modern-day slavery" to the traffic of women. It was in Vienna as well where the slogan "women's rights are human rights" gained international prominence; Rosca had brought it from the Philippine women's movement and helped launch it internationally. Rosca was press secretary of the Hague International Women's Tribunal on Japan's World War II Military Sex Slavery which convicted Japan's wartime era leadership for creating and using the Comfort Women. Rosca is particularly concerned with the origins of women's oppression and the interface between class, race, and gender exploitation so that women can move toward greater theory building and practice of a comprehensive genuine women's liberation. She often speaks on such issues as sex tourism, trafficking, the mail-order bride industry, and violence against women, and the labor export component of globalization under imperialism.

Personal life

She lives in the neighborhood of

Jackson Heights, Queens Jackson Heights is a neighborhood in the northwestern portion of the borough of Queens in New York City. Jackson Heights is neighbored by North Corona to the east, Elmhurst to the south, Woodside to the west, northern Astoria ( Ditmars-Steinw ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. Her lecture schedules are managed by ''Speak Out Now''. A huge fan of science fiction, Rosca reads four books a week (three "light," one "heavy").

Works

Novels

*'' Twice Blessed: A Novel'' (1992) *'' State of War'' (1988)

Nonfiction

*''Jose Maria Sison: At Home in the World—Portrait of a Revolutionary'', co-authored with

Jose Maria Sison Jose Maria Canlas Sison (February 8, 1939 – December 16, 2022), also known by his nickname Joma, was a Filipino writer and activist who founded the Communist Party of the Philippines and added elements of Maoism to its philosophy – which ...

(2004) *''Endgame: The Fall of Marcos'' non-fiction (

Franklin Watts Grolier was one of the largest American publishers of general encyclopedias, including '' The Book of Knowledge'' (1910), ''The New Book of Knowledge'' (1966), ''The New Book of Popular Science'' (1972), ''Encyclopedia Americana'' (1945), ''Acad ...

, 1987)

Story Collections

*''Stories of a Bitter Country'' (Anvil, 2019) *''Gang of Five'' (Independently Published, 2013) *''Sugar & Salt'' (2006) *''The Monsoon Collection'' (Asian and Pacific Writing) (University of Queensland Press, 1983) *''Bitter Country and other stories'' (Malaya Books, 1970)

Reception and recognition

Rosca's novel "State of War" is considered a classic account of ordinary people's dictatorship. Her second best-selling English language novel ''Twice Blessed'' won her the 1993

for excellence in literature. Rosca is a classic short story writer. Her story "Epidemic" was included in the 1986 "100 Short Stories in the United States'' by

Raymond Carver Raymond Clevie Carver Jr. (May 25, 1938 – August 2, 1988) was an American short story writer and poet. He contributed to the revitalization of the American short story during the 1980s. Early life Carver was born in Clatskanie, Oregon, a mil ...

and in the

Missouri Missouri is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee ...

Review collection of their ''Best Published Stories in 25 Years'', while "Sugar & Salt" was included in the ''Ms Magazines ''Best Fiction in 30 Years''.

References

External links

"Lily Pad" Unconventional Thoughts from an Unconventional Filipina, a personal blogsite by Ninotchka Rosca
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rosca, Ninotchka 1946 births Living people Filipino activists Filipino feminists Filipino human rights activists Filipino novelists Filipino Roman Catholics Filipino socialists Filipino women novelists Feminist writers Writers from San Jose, California People from Queens, New York Filipino socialist feminists University of the Philippines Diliman alumni Women's rights in the Philippines International Writing Program alumni Palanca Award recipients American Book Award winners