MANILA – In keeping with its tradition of celebrating literary excellence in the Philippines, the Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature (Palanca Awards) honored 57 Filipino literary artists at the 65th Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature Awards Ceremony held at The Peninsula Manila in Makati City, September 1.
This year’s batch of winners saw many first-time winners, coming from different localities within the Philippines and abroad, making literary history alongside veteran authors, some of which have already earned their place at the Hall of Fame like Edgardo Maranan and Peter Solis Nery. Also, two young women fictionists copped the Grand Prizes in the bi-annual Novel and Nobela categories.
Now on its 65th year, the most prestigious and longest-running literary contest accepted 895 entries in 22 categories, with the Novel and Nobela categories open this year. Entries for each category were evaluated by select panels of judges especially chosen for their contributions and excellence in their respective fields of literature.
The Palanca Awards was named in honor of businessman and philanthropist Don Carlos Palanca, Sr. It aims to develop Philippine Literature by providing incentives for writers to craft their most outstanding literary works as well as serve as a treasury of Philippine literary gems.
The Sponsors also bestowed the distinction of the Gawad Dangal ng Lahi, on Dr. Gemino H. Abad. This year’s guest of honor and speaker, is a professor emeritus of literature at the University of the Philippines, Dr. Abad has established himself as an eminent poet, essayist, fictionist and editor of several literary anthologies, helping shape the larger corpus of contemporary Philippine literature by contributing his own body of work and mentoring to many students of literature.
