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 as a dependency of the ...

, 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: ''Pamantasan ng Malayong Silanganan''), also referred to by its acronym FEU, is a private non-sectarian liberal arts university in Manila, Philippines. Created by the merger of Far Eastern College and the Insti ...

. 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, Can ...

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 ...

, Cebuano, Ilocano and Kapampangan, 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 {{Philippines-writer-stub