Cirilo Bautista

Who is Cirilo Bautista?

Cirilo F. Bautista is a multi-awarded Filipino poet, fictionist, critic and writer of nonfiction. He received his basic education from Legarda Elementary School and Mapa High School. He received his degrees in AB Literature from the University of Santo Tomas, MA Literature from St. Louis University, Baguio City, and Doctor of Arts in Language and Literature from De La Salle University-Manila. He received a fellowship to attend the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa and was awarded an honorary degree—the only Filipino to have been so honored there.

Bautista taught creative writing and literature at St. Louis University and the University of Santo Tomas before moving to De La Salle University-Manila in 1970. He is also a co-founding member of the Philippine Literary Arts Council and a member of the Manila Critics Circle, Philippine Center of International PEN and the Philippine Writers Academy.

Bautista has also received Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards as well as Philippines Free Press Awards for Fiction, Manila Critics' Circle National Book Awards, Gawad Balagtas from the Unyon ng mga Manunulat ng Pilipinas, the Pablo Roman Prize for the Novel, and the highest accolades from the City of Manila, Quezon City and Iligan City. Bautista was hailed in 1993 as Makata ng Taon by the Komisyon ng mga Wika ng Pilipinas for winning the poetry contest sponsored by the government. The last part of his epic trilogy The Trilogy of Saint Lazarus, entitled Sunlight on Broken Stones, won the Centennial Prize for the epic in 1998. He was an exchange professor in Waseda University and Ohio University. He became an Honorary Fellow in Creative Writing at the University of Iowa in 1969, and was the first recipient of a British Council fellowship as a creative writer at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1987.