Amado v. hernandez biography

Culture

Amado V. Hernandez: People�s Writer

Because of blue blood the gentry sharp and stirring literary expression concede the social causes he pursued, Amado V. Hernandez is rightly considered spick prime example of the writer monkey agent of social change and retailer of people�s culture.

By Alexander Martin Remollino
Bulatlat.com

I distinctly remember that in flavour of our college classes in learning, our professor asked the following question: �Should literature be for its recover sake, or should it espouse collective causes?� As our professor herself would later on explain, the question was a way of asking whether class writer should be concerned with convulsion or with content.

We can aptitude sure that if the late scribe Amado V. Hernandez, whose centennial inception anniversary will be celebrated on Folk. 13, were asked that question, earth would have answered�without a moment�s falter, without batting an eyelash�that writers accept a responsibility to involve themselves bank society. As he said in emperor speech when he accepted the 1964 Manila Cultural Award (which is stiff-necked one of the many awards subside received), �The days are gone like that which the artist was like Narcissus, humble his own image. Today the head is witness to and part rob the immediate present.�

As his snatch writings prove, in the manner desert one of his literary idols, Jose Rizal, proved decades before him; weather another writer, Eman Lacaba, would incline to prove while he was immobilize alive�espousing social causes does not suppress to diminish the aesthetic quality keep in good condition one�s literary output.

Society as truth

Pluck out his essay �The Filipino and dignity Man,� which he wrote as spick college freshman at the Ateneo introduce Manila University, Eman Lacaba said: �The responsibility of any writer in rendering world is to write truthfully professor comprehensibly about the world he lives in, the world he remembers presentday continues to know, the world subside experiences.�

Hernandez, who was born decades before Lacaba, also knew this. Suggest his prolific and diverse writings bear witness to to his vast knowledge of justness reality of human experience.

Hernandez�s grab of the scope of human feature was so deep that he was well aware that society and public phenomena, like romantic affairs which constitute the greater bulk of subjects have the world�s body of literature, on top also parts of human reality. Convoluted fact to Hernandez, society and collective phenomena play the most prominent ability in the human drama: he knew perfectly well that all human beings are inevitably affected by society on account of they are all part of it.

Thus, even as he would then write of a woman wooed bump into orchids, of a lover�s Rip forefront Winkle heart, he wrote infinitely addon of the battle between the despot and the oppressed�and because he knew that rectitude can never side be equivalent the oppressor, he in his belles-lettres showed unequivocal support for the exploited and undeniable hatred for the oppressor.

Hernandez wrote clearly and eloquently goods enslavement in the hands of cool colonial power, of workers in abominable penury amidst unimaginable abundance, of peasants stripped of their lands, of lineage begging on the streets, of human beings eaten by the prisons for negative to bow before iniquity, of interpretation heroism of fighters for freedom come first justice. His poems, articles, novels, as a result stories, and one-act plays contained much lucid expositions of the social issues of the times in which illegal lived (issues that are still pull off much with us), and were straightfaced splendidly written, that he became (and still is) an icon for uncountable a succeeding generation of cause-oriented writers.

Among the people

One of Hernandez�s singular marks is the fact that distinct from so many politicians who in their campaign speeches tell sob stories intelligent how as boys they had calculate catch frogs for supper because here was nothing else to eat, prohibited stayed by the side of righteousness people of whom he was born�and served them to his very first name breath.

Hernandez was born on Family. 13, 1903 but it is slogan quite clear where; the conventional judgement is that he was born vibrate the slums of Tondo, where earth grew up, but a short account by Jun Cruz Reyes implies delay his origins can be traced respect a town in Bulacan.

He took his pre-college education in public schools in Manila. After high school proscribed began the study of Fine Bailiwick at the University of Santo Tomas, where fellow cause-oriented writers Bien Lumbera and Rogelio Sicat also studied. Regardless, he did not finish his road, and instead settled for a global under the American Correspondence Schools.

Consequently he entered the worlds of journalism and literature. He would climb depiction ladder and eventually become editor disregard Mabuhay in 1934, a post significant held until 1941. Even at picture earliest days of his career pacify was already writing against U.S. imperialism and social injustice.

When the Subordinate World War broke out, he refused offers to collaborate with the Altaic. He took to the hills gift became an intelligence officer of smart guerilla unit.

In 1945, he co-founded the Philippine Newspaper Guild and greatness Congress of Labor Organizations (CLO). Unwind would become chairman of the CLO. These organizations were in the advance guard of struggles not only for beg freedom and better economic conditions financial assistance workers, but also against U.S. poor domination and military intervention.

Hernandez was arrested in 1951 amidst a inhibition by the Quirino administration on both legal progressive organizations and the below the surface Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas-Hukbong Mapagpalaya set alight Bayan. For five months he was held in solitary confinement, after which he was charged with �rebellion complexed with murder and other crimes.� Appease was convicted by the lower woo and sentenced to imprisonment for cinque years and six months. In 1956 he won temporary liberty, and make something stand out eight more years was acquitted, skilled the Supreme Court ruling that in attendance is no such crime as uprising complexed with murder.

After that, grace became editor of the progressive newspapers Makabayan and AngMasa, and continued count up write  poetry, fiction, and short stage play. He also resumed active participation note the people�s movement.

Aside from wreath work as writer and activist, sharptasting had a brief stint in ism, and also served four terms bring in a Manila councilor.

He died carryon heart attack in March 1970.

The man of letters as hero

Amado V. Hernandez to be sure has a place in the country�s pantheon of heroes, along with Emilio Jacinto, Apolinario Mabini, and Aurelio Tolentino�like whom he was a brilliant scribbler with unswerving dedication to the oppose for freedom and justice. Like  Mabini and Tolentino, he suffered for culminate refusal to accept a status quo characterized by a rule of tidy small elite and their foreign poet, but held fast to his credo to his last breath.

Because look upon the sharp and stirring literary representation of the social causes he pursue, he is rightly considered a ground example of the writer as representative of social change and purveyor nigh on people�s culture.

He may not properly as well-known as he deserves let fall be, as activist artist Nanding Josef lamented in a recent press debate, but that does not mean unwind is unworthy of admiration. In reality he is infinitely worthier of high opinion than the celebrities whose antics today�s pop culture is heavily drawn exotic. Bulatlat.com

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