To the young writer and other essays / F. Sionil Jose.

in 2001, he was named National Artist for Literature, and in 2004, he was given by the Chilean government the Pablo Neruda Centennial Award.

F. Sionil Jose, the most widely translated Filipino writer, wrote these essays over a peiod of time. They are a summing up of six decades of creative imagination and dedication. This lengthy writing career was first inspired by his mother, Sofia, who learned English from the Thomasities-the first American teachers who came to the Philippines after the conclusion of the Philippine-American War in 1902. In grade school, his teacher Soledad Oriel introduced him to Jose Rival, Willa Cather and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, and at the University of Santo Tomas, his teachers Paz M. Latorena and Juan Labrador, nurtured him : the former how to read, and the latter, a Dominican writer, taught him an important lesson in writing-clarity. Though these essays are personal, they can be instructive to those who want to read, to write, and to understant the Filipinos and their country. In 1980, Sionil Jose received the Ramon Magsaysay Memorial Award for Literature and Journalism