Edith L. Tiempo |
(b. 1919) |
Edith L. Tiempo’s 10th-anniversary gift to ALIWW is A Blade of Fern (1978), a rare first edition copy of her debut novel. In a letter accompanying her gift, Tiempo explains that the novel’s chronology is the longest in her career, taking almost some 40 years to see print. On and off for a long time, Tiempo crafted this novel—after a late girlhood stay in the Surigao hills, as a young bride during the war’s interim, upon her return to Silliman University, in Iowa City where the first four chapters passed for her master’s thesis, at the University of Denver, and finally, with Kowloon in mind—where the prestigious Heinemann Books attended to the novel’s final galley proofs. In 1999, in recognition of her magnanimous devotion to inspiring generations of Filipino writers in expressing their poetic insights through the pen, the Philippine government proclaimed Tiempo as National Artist—the first woman writer to ever merit the distinction. |
©Ateneo Library of Women's Writings
3/F-Rizal Library Annex
Ateneo de Manila University
Loyola Heights,1103 Q.C., Philippines