Nick joaquin essays

Note: This is a full reproduction of Nick Joaquin’s essay published in 1966 which I got from another website. I found it very inspiring and timely despite the fact that it was written almost half a century ago. I posted it here in the spirit of letting it reach a wider audience because it deserves no less. No copyright infringement is intended.

Entire lifetimes and university departments are devoted to these topics, so Joaquin must have thought his essay’s particular subject important enough to warrant a short but dense title. And it is indeed significant, at least for his target audience, Filipinos.

Applied to Filipino cultural history, Joaquin says that the Filipino soul was born through the people’s encounter with Western technology, and that, once born, it could be superficially altered but not fundamentally changed.

Philippine novelist, poet, playwright, and essayist writing in English, the National Artist for Literature. Joaquin is widely considered the best postwar author in his country. He has written largely about the Spanish colonial period and the diverse heritage of the Filipino people.