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 was an administrative district of the Spanish Empire in Southeast Asia governed by a governor-general as a dependency of the Viceroyalty of New Spain based in Mexico City until Mexican independence when i ...

, 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. Throughout his life he collaborated with numerous newspapers, such as ''El Precursor'', ''La Revolución'', ''El Espectador'', ''La Vanguardia'', '' El Debate'', ''La Defensa'' and ''The Cebu Advertiser''. 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 (), also referred to by its acronym FEU, is a Private university, private research non-sectarian university in Manila, Philippines. Created by the merger of Far Eastern College and the Institute of Accounts, Business and ...

. In 1952, he moved to the

University of the Philippines Diliman The University of the Philippines Diliman (also called UPD; ), also referred to as UP Diliman, is a State university and college (Philippines), public, coeducational, Research university, research university located in Diliman, Quezon City, Ph ...

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 countries in the Americas **Spanish cuisine **Spanish history **Spanish culture ...

, English, Cebuano, Ilocano and

Kapampangan Kapampangan, Capampañgan or Pampangan may refer to: *Kapampangan people, of the Philippines *Kapampangan language Kapampangan, Capampáñgan, or Pampangan, is an Austronesian language, and one of the eight major languages of the Philippines. ...

, remained unfinished after his death on 20 April 1970.

References

Bibliography

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 20th-century Filipino poets Writers from Cebu Spanish-language writers of the Philippines University of San Carlos alumni Academic staff of the University of the Philippines 20th-century Filipino novelists Filipino male poets 20th-century Filipino male writers {{Philippines-writer-stub