Paz Marquez Benitez: One Woman's Life, Letters, and Writings

by Virginia Benitez Licuanan

An account of the life of an extraordinary teacher, writer, and publisher. Includes Marquez’s letters and entries from her diaries, which reflect life at the turn of the century until the 1980s.

Winner, 1995 National Book Award, for Biography.

296 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

Reviews

[K.D. Absolutely · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'll never get tired of reading this. Not only because Paz Marquez Benitez wrote the quintessential "Dead Stars" but she also hailed from Tayabas (now Quezon), my home province. This gave so much information about those periods that used to be unknown to me. In particular, that period between the Spanish and American era in the Philippines. This period was the boom of Quezon Province when coconut farmers could send their children not only to exclusive schools in Manila (36 hours boat ride from Lucena or you could go via horseback for 24 hours) but also in the US (1 month boat ride and only snail mail as the way to communicate).

I bought this book as a companion for reading "Dead Stars", the first English short story published by Benitez. She was the first and foremost short story writer in the Philippines. She was the first batch of Filipinos educated by the Americans. She founded the first American-style college for Women in the Philippines (the Philippine Women's College). Her life, that can be gleamed through her letters to and from her loved ones in this collection, was a well-spent life. She was full of life, successes and love. Thank you to her daughter, Virginal Benitez-Licuanan for finding these letters from the vault when Benitez died. Sharing them to the public further immortalized your mother and for the younger generations to really appreciate the contribution of your mom to Philippine literature.