Sol Reyes Awarded the A.L. Becker SE Asian Literature in Translation Prize for 2016
It is with great pride that the School of Humanities congratulates PROFESSOR EMERITUS SOLEDAD S. REYES for being awarded the A.L. Becker Southeast Asian Literature in Translation Prize for 2016 by the Southeast Asian Council (SEAC) of the Association for Asian Studies and the Becker Prize Committee for her translation, What Now Ricky (Anvil Publishing, 2013) of Rosario de Guzman Lingat's Ano Ngayon, Ricky (1971).
"What Now Ricky? (Ano Ngayon, Ricky?, 1971) was perhaps Lingat’s most political novel written after she had participated in the Palihan workshop held at the Ateneo de Manila University in 1970. The novel followed the activities of Ricky, an idealistic college student from Tondo, in the tumult and violence of the First Quarter Storm. As Ricky immersed himself more deeply in the activists’ cause, he realized how intricately linked the personal and the political were. The postwar Tondo was a microcosm of Philippine society, a volcano about to explode, where various types represented the sector of carping critics who offered nothing but empty rhetoric, the corrupt bureaucracy, the disillusioned youth who turned to crime, the innocent victims of injustice, the selfish pleasure-seekers, and the few brave ones who did something to change an intolerable status quo. The novel was a 1970s bildungsroman."
http://www.ateneo.edu/ls/soh/english/news/sol-reyes-awarded-al-becker-se......
From Karina Bolasco, Anvil's Publishing Manager
"We congratulate Dr. Soledad Reyes for this achievement. After decades of outstanding scholarship and truly mindful teaching, she pursues with her vintage fierce passion that which completes her lifetime dedication to recovering from oblivion, almost single-handedly, some of the Philippines' great literary works in Filipino. Upon retirement from the Ateneo de Manila University, though she is still Professor Emeritus there, she embarked on translating to English the works of Macario Pineda and Rosario de Guzman Lingat, now making them available not just to Filipinos but to the whole wide world.
"Four of these translations have been published at Anvil and DLSU Press, the latest being Lingat's WHAT NOW RICKY? To mark her 70th birthday, THREE new translations are coming out this first quarter from Ateneo de Manila University Press, De La Salle University Press and Anvil Publishing. In merely four years, she translated SEVEN books. What we know of her remains to this day: whatever she puts her mind to, she accomplishes, and without a tinge of compromise."
Congratulations, Sol!
Thank you for your inspiring scholarship!