His native coast / Edith L. Tiempo.

His Native Coast is a story of search for identity. The rather inarticulate attempt of Michael Linder to shape for himself a personal identification with the world that would give ultimate meaning to his life is paralleled by Marina's own search : for Marina ispartly tribal, and although her life and training are steeped in Western (American) culture, she is haunted by the influence of her Ifugao mother, who had lived and died in her native hills without once coming down to the lowlands. His Native Coast gives the reader a provocative and moving story of two "pilgrimages, " one ending outside of the seeker's geographical context, and the other in a return to it : one resulting in a glimpse of self-recognition, the other in what turns out to be a refusal of it. The novel attempts a definition of personal and national identity that transcends geographical origins, and suggests that whether one is in his home country or not, the belief in his own human usefulness in his context has much to do with forging a healthy sense of belonging. In these days of heightehed self-searching among the western-influenced developing nations, this Philippine experience offers its own unique insight. Edith Tiempo, National Artist for Literature has a writing career wchich spans over sixty years. Her range of genres extends from poetry to fiction, both long and short, to criticism. Her first collection of poems, The Tracks of Babylon and Other Poems, was published in 1996 by Swallow Press in Denver and won the Palanca first prize in 1967. She has published two other books of poems, a short story collection, and four novels, including His Native Coast, which won first prize in 1979 from the Cultural Center of the Philippines. Writers who have attended the Silliman National Writers Workshop, know her simply as "Mom." She and her equally eminent hsband, the late Dr. Edilberto K. Tiempo, co-founded the workshop in 1962 and have guided and inspired many writers. She holds an M.A. in Creative Writing from the State University of Iowa and a Ph.D. from the University of Denver. In 1988, she received the Gawad Pambansang Alagad in Balagtas.