Creative nonfiction is the most popular form of creative writing today and, in the opinion of some, the most important. Filipinos have been writing it for some time now, but this Reader is perhaps the first compilation of the many varieties of the genre written by some of the finest writers of the country.

Intended as a companion volume to Creative Nonfiction: A Manual for Filipino Writers by Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo, it is as good an introduction to the field as the reader can hope to find. It includes the works of both the acknowledged masters, like Kerima Polotan, Gregorio Brillantes, and Gilda Cordero-Fernando, and the young and exciting, like Jessica Zafra, Clinton Palanca, Luis Katigbak, and Sarge Lacuesta.

Of particular interest is Nick Joaquin’s landmark Ramon Magsaysay Lecture: “Journalism versus Literature”:

“The literary snob’s disdaining of journalism is a thing of the past, now that the greatest literary artists are producing reportage.”