Biographical Essay

Jose Yap Dalisay, Jr.: A Prolific and Multi-Awarded Writer

Jose Yap Dalisay, Jr. at an early age has been exposed to journalism. He dropped out of
college to work as a newspaper reporter and wrote scripts mostly for Lino Brocka, the National
Artist of the Philippines for Theater and Film. Jose Yap Dalisay, Jr. is a prolific writer at a young
age which shaped his career to become a multi-awarded writer.

Dalisay was born in Romblon in 1954 and completed his primary education at La Salle
Greenhills in 1966 and his secondary education at Philippine Science High School in 1970. After
dropping out of college, he returned to school and earned his B.A. English (Imaginative
Writing), cum laude at the University of the Philippines in 1984. He later received an M.F.A.
from the University of Michigan in 1988 and a PhD in English from the University of
Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 1991 as a Fulbright scholar. As a prolific writer, he has authored more
than 30 books since 1984. Six of those books have garnered National Books Awards from the
Manila Critics Circle. In 1998, Dalisay made it to the Cultural center of the Philippines (CCP)
Centennial Honors List as one of the 100 most accomplished Filipino artists of the past century.
Among his numerous books are Oldtimer and Other Stories (asphodel, 1984; U.P. Press, 2003);
Penmanship and other Stories (Cacho, 1995); “The Knowing is in the Writing: Notes on the
practice of Fiction” (U.P. Press, 2006), and others. As a multi-awarded writer, Dalisay has won
16 Palanca Awards in five genres. For winning at least five First Prize awards, he was elevated
to the Palanca Hall of Fame in 2000. He has also garnered five Cultural Center of the Philippines
awards for playwriting; and FAMAS, URIAN, Star, and Catholic Mass Media awards and
citations for his screenplays. Aside from these awards, he also chaired the 1992 ASEAN Writers
Conference Workshop in Penang, Malaysia.

With these achievements as a prolific and multi-awarded writer, he was named one of the
Ten Outstanding Young Men (TOYM) of 1993 for his creative writing.