Cristina Pantoja-Hidalgo
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'''Cristina Pantoja-Hidalgo''', born '''Cristina Pantoja''' on [[21 August]] [[1944]], is an award-winning [[Filipino people|Filipina]] fictionist, critic and pioneering writer of creative nonfiction.
Pantoja-Hidalgo is a high school valedictorian of [[St. Paul College Quezon City]]. She received both her Bachelor of Philosophy (Faculty of Philosophy and Letters)Ph. B. (1964) magna cum laude and MA in Literature (1967) meritissimo from the [[University of Santo Tomas]]. She later received a Ph.D in Comparative Literature from the [[University of the Philippines]] in 1993. She is an Associate for Fiction at the U.P. [http://www.up.edu.ph/~icw/ Institute of Creative Writing] and a member of the ''Philippine Literary Arts Council'' (PLAC). She previously served U.P. as Director of the [http://www.up.edu.ph/~icw/staff.htm U.P. Institute of Creative Writing], Director of the [http://www.upd.edu.ph/~uppress/ University of the Philippines Press] and coordinator of the Creative Writing Program at the U.P. Department of [[English literature|English]] and Comparative [[Literature]], [http://www.up.edu.ph/~kal/ College of Arts and Letters]. Pantoja-Hidalgo is currently Vice President for Public Affairs and Professor of [[English literature|English]], comparative [[literature]] and [[creative writing]] at the [[University of Philippines]].
Pantoja-Hidalgo has been writing for [[Philippines|Philippine]] newspapers and magazines since the age of fifteen. She has worked as a writer, editor and teacher in [[Thailand]], [[Lebanon]], [[Korea]], [[Myanmar]] ([[Burma]]) and [[New York]], [[U.S.A.]] Her interesting lifestyle, the result of her husband's fifteen-year connection with [[UNICEF]], is reflectled in her writing. Pantoja-Hidalgo was originally best known for an unusual kind of autobiographical/travel writing, which includes ''Sojourns'' (1984), ''Skyscrapers, Celadon and Kimchi'' (1993), ''I Remember'' (1991) and ''The Path of the Heart'' (1994). Pantoja-Hidalgo later won numerous other prizes for her fiction, creative nonfiction, literary scholarship and edited anthologies. She has frequently published many of her creative and critical manuscripts in major publications in [[Finland]], [[Korea]], the [[Philippines]], [[Thailand]] and the [[United States]].
Besides travel essays, Hidalgo has a collection of personal essays, ''The Path of Heart'' (1994), and ''Coming Home'' (1997). She has also edited several anthologies with the help of her colleagues from the University of the Philippines such as: ''Philippine Post-Colonial Studies: Essays on Language and Literature'' which she did with Priscelina Patajo-Legasto and ''The Likhaan Book of Poetry and Fiction'' with Gemino Abad.
She has encouraged many aspiring writers’ efforts by editing their works: ''Shaking the Family Tree'' (1998) and ''Why I Travel and Other Essays by Fourteen Women'' (2000) with Erlinda Panlilio. Hidalgo found the idea of writing short and simple initiation stories appealing. It reflects in her collection of short stories: ''Ballad of a Lost Season and Other Stories'' (1987), ''Tales for a Rainy Night'' (1993), ''Where Only the Moon Rages: Nine Tales'' (1994), ''Catch a Falling Star'' (1999) and the most recent one ''Sky Blue After The Rain: Selected Stories and Tales (2005).''
Before and after her fifteen years abroad, Hidalgo was a teacher first at the [[University of Santo Tomas]] and later at the [[University of the Philippines]]. Completing the requirements for her doctoral degree on Comparative Literature, Hidalgo has found many opportunities to read Literary Theory as well as put these into practice in her own works. Hidalgo claimed that she had never considered herself a literary critic, but just the same, she found it useful to collect five of her critical essays in ''A Gentle Subversion: Essays on Philippine Fiction in English'' (1998).
Hidalgo's critical essays, which reflects her interest in fictional writing by Filipino women, serves a much-needed contribution to a developing body of feminist scholarship in the country today.
== '''''Novel:''''' ''Recuerdo'' ==
Recuerdo is an epistolary novel consisted of messages sent through email. The messages all came from Amanda, a middle-aged widow, to her daughter Marisa, a university student. Amanda is in Bangkok while Marisa is in Manila. Writing letters is Amanda's way of sorting out her life and helping Marisa understand their family' past. Amanda use her own mother's (Isabel) stories in many of these letters.
This way of storytelling resulted to a "Dynasty in Cyberspace" against a backdrop that juxtaposes two entirely different cultures: the first being supersititous while the other sophisticated. Such stories leave the readers a fascinating effect ---- for it would have been our own ancestors' story if we have the courage to dig them all up.
Hidalo has been very firm abut her stand on this particular novel, it isn't realistic nor does it have any attempt on realism ---- it is a romantic novel. Fellow writer Ophelia Dimalanta supports Hidalgo as she says in her review of ''Recuerdo'', that readers might have the tendency of commenting on ''the contravening of some degree of verisimilitude in the narrating o the stories rendered through letters which come regularly and with such contrived continuity and incessantness.'' Clearly, Dimalanta's response is a way of reinforcing Hidalgo's claim of ''Recuerdo'' being a romantic novel.
== '''''Novel:''''' '''A Book of Dreams''' ==
A novel all about dreams and their respective dreamers. A novel in which the characters live in their own dreams, in paricular, those of Angela's. But before readers mistakenly take this for a postmodern novel, the book's blurb adds, "But for all its affinity to the postmodern pastiche, its plot is the traditional one of the search... the quest."
==Works==
===Short Fiction===
* ''Ballad of a Lost Season'', 1987;
* ''Tales for a Rainy Night'', 1993 ;
* ''Where Only the Moon Rages'', 1994;
* ''Catch a Falling Star'', 1999
* ''Sky Blue After The Rain: Selected Stories and Tales'' , 2005
===Novels===
* ''Recuerdo'', 1996;
* ''Book of Dreams'', 2001
===Essays / Creative Non-fiction===
* ''Sojourns'', 1984
* ''Five Years in a Forgotten Land: A Burmese Notebook'', 1991
* ''I Remember...Travel Essays'', 1992
* ''Skyscrapers, Celadon and Kimchi: A Korean Notebook'', 1993;
* ''The Path of the Heart'', 1994;
* ''Coming Home'', 1998
===Literary Criticism===
* ''Woman Writing: Home and Exile in the Autobiographical Narratives of Filipino Women'', 1994;
* ''A Gentle Subversion: Essays on Philippine Fiction'', 1998
==='''Anthologies''' (as editor)===
* ''Selections from Contemporary Philippine Literature in English'', 1971
* ''Philippine Post-Colonial Studies'', 1993 (coedited with Priscelina Patajo-Legasto)
* ''The Likhaan Book of Poetry and Fiction: 1995'', 1996
* ''Shaking the Family Tree'', 1998
* ''An Edith Tiempo Reader'', 1999
* ''The Likhaan Book of Poetry and Fiction: 1997'', 1999
* ''Pinay: Autobiographical Narratives by Women Writers, 1926-1998'', 2000
* ''Why I Travel and Other Essays'', 2000
* ''Sleepless in Manila: Essays on Insomnia by Insomniacs'', 2003
* ''My Fair Maladies'', 2005
===Textbooks===
* ''Creative Nonfiction: A Manual for Filipino Writers'', 2003
* ''Creative Nonfiction: A Reader'', 2003
===Honors and Awards===
* Carlos [[Palanca]] Memorial Awards for Short Fiction, Essay and the Novel
* [[Philippine Graphic]] Awards for Fiction
* [http://www.geocities.com/icasocot/fp_winners.html Philippines Free Press Awards for Fiction]
* ''Focus'' Awards for Fiction
* National Book Awards from The Manila Critics' Circle
* [[British Council]] Fellowship to [[Cambridge]]
* U.P. President's Award for Outstanding Publication
* U.P. Gawad Chancellor for Artist of the Year
* U.P. Gawad Chancellor for Outstanding Teacher (Professor Level)
* Ellen F. Fajardo Foundation Grant for Excellence in Teaching
* Outstanding Thomasian Writer Award
* U.P. Gawad Chancellor Hall of Fame Award
* U.P. System International Publication Awards
* [[Henry Lee Irwin]] Professorial Chair in Creative Writing, [[Ateneo de Manila University]]
==External links==
* [http://likhaan_online.tripod.com/08242001archivesite/literary5-5.html University of the Philippines Institute of Creative Writing]
* [http://www.viloria.com/secondthoughts/archives/00000801.html "Second Thoughts", Manuel Viloria's website on Philippine literature, culture and society]
* [http://www.up.edu.ph/new_officials.htm New Officials, University of the Philippines]
* [http://www.meralco.com.ph/Business/about/yorac_guidelines.pdf Gawad Haydee Yorac]
* [http://www.members.tripod.com/likhaan_online/jingbalagtas.htm UP ICW Website of Gawad Balagtas Recipients]
* [http://www.geocities.com/icasocot/cphidalgo_novel.html The Philippine Novel in English into the Twenty-First Century]
* [http://www.geocities.com/icasocot/cphidalgo_essay.html Breaking Barriers: The Essay and the Non-Fiction Narrative]
* [http://www.palhbooks.com/roundtable4.htm PALH Books]
* [http://www.unc.edu.ph/news/news_viewer.html?NewsId=75 University of Nueva Caceres, Naga City]
* [http://rizal.lib.admu.edu.ph/aliww/pmblecture.html The Paz Marquez-Benitez Lectures, Ateneo de Manila University]
* [http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/SSEAL/SoutheastAsia/seaphil.html Philippines: Women's Studies Bibliography, University of California, Berkeley]
* [http://www.library.ucla.edu/libraries/yrl/colls/sea/newacqphilippines2004.htm Philippines 2004, UCLA Library]
* [http://www.hawaii.edu/asiaref/philippines/bookreview.htm University of Hawaii at Manoa Library]
* [http://www.ncca.gov.ph/about_cultarts/comarticles.php?artcl_Id=145 The Country's Literary Produce for 2000 by Bienvenido Lumbera]
* [http://www.panitikan.com.ph/books.htm Your Portal to Philippine Literature]
* [http://www.nbdb.gov.ph/main.php?page=isbnbooklist National Book Development Board]
* [http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3473&PHPSESSID=06712d64bdef73c823d93fa306a1c3c3 The Literary Encyclopedia]
* [http://www.gale.com/pdf/introduction/TwayneWorldLitIntro.pdf. World Literature Today 9WLT}]
* [http://members.freespeech.org/southeast-asian-literature/virtual_lotus/Writers_bios.html Modern Literature of Southeast Asia]
* [http://members.surfeu.fi/filippiinitseura/firefly.html Tulikärpänen filippiiniläisiä novelleja]
* [http://www.rinrokaku.jp/shop/search.cgi?&=&file=s.911&FF=40 忘れられた地での5年間:ビルマノート]
* [http://www.international.ucla.edu/showevent.asp?eventid=4463 University of California at Los Angeles]
[[Category:Filipino writers|Pantoja-Hidalgo]]
[[Category:University of Santo Tomas alumni|Pantoja-Hidalgo, Cristina]]
[[Category:1944 births|Pantoja-Hidalgo, Cristina]]
[[Category:Living people|Pantoja-Hidalgo, Cristina]]
[[Category:English-language writers|Pantoja-Hidalgo, Cristina]]