Who is Gilda Cordero Fernando and what are some of her works? Find out below!
GILDA CORDERO FERNANDO – Here are some of the things to know about Gilda Cordero Fernando including her works that are popular.
Writer, book publisher, and Inquirer columnist Gilda Cordero Fernando passed away in 2020. She was born on June 4, 1930, and died at the age of 90 due to a lingering illness. And before passing, she already had her funeral wake – “a living wake with the improper friends around”.
When she died, she wished her Marianne Faithfull songs to be played and her ashes to be put under the hundred-year-old “santol” tree by her gate.
She graduated from St. Theresa’s College in 1951. She finished her BA and BS in education there while she took her master’s degree in English literature from Ateneo de Manila University.
Fernando rose to prominence in the late 1950s. She is a short story writer in English. She was a Carlos Palanca awardee and a Philippines Free Press literary awardee.
Her Palanca-winning stories are the following:
- “The Morning Before Us” (1954)
- “Sunburn” (1957)
- “A Wilderness of Sweets” (1964)
- “Early in Our World” (1967)
Other famous works of hers are The Butcher, The Baker, The Candlestick Maker (1962), A Wilderness of Sweets (1973), and its compilation version, Story Collection (1994), Philippine Food and Life (1992) with Alfredo Roces.
She received Gawad CCP Para Sa Sining for Literature and Publishing, in 1994 – this is the highest honor from the Cultural Center of the Philippines.
Ateneo Library of Women’s Writings (ALIWW) dubbed her “Philippine culture’s towering figure, for the broad, impressive range of her accomplishments”.
GCF Books is the publishing house she owns which published stories such as “The Streets of Manila” (1977), “Turn of the Century” (1978), “Philippine Ancestral Houses” (1980), “Being Filipino” (1981), “The History of the Burgis” (1987), “Folk Architecture” (1989) and “The Soul Book” (1991).
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