Why We Are Hungry: Rats in the kitchen, Carabaos in the closet

by F. Sionil José

As a sequel to Why We Are Poor, this essay collection by the country’s most widely translated writer enlarges on the themes that have defined his oeuvre in the last six decades. Worth noting are the challenging statements on colonialism and the colonized mind — a condition which many Filipinos are afflicted with.

Sionil Jose elaborates on his core ideas of a nationalist revolution and questions the communist movement, as well as the Moro struggle, for not really having achieved anything in the last 40 years. He suggests that it is the military that could be the nation’s modernizer.

Sionil Jose makes definitive statements about Philippine culture not being primarily Asian but Western. Worth noting in this essay collection, too, are his instructive comments on literature and on the writers who worked for Ferdinand Marcos.

In his twilight years, Sionil Jose continues to raise his voice to wake Filipinos up from their apathy and lethargy and, most of all, from their self-induced ignorance. He has also received the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Literature in 1980, the National Artist Award in 2001, and the Pablo Neruda Centennial Award from Chile in 2004.

From philstar.com.

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Francisco Sionil José was born in 1924 in Pangasinan province and attended the public school in his hometown. He attended the University of Santo Tomas after World War II and in 1949, started his career in writing. Since then, his fiction has been published internationally and translated into several languages including his native Ilokano. He has been involved with the international cultural organizations, notably International P.E.N., the world association of poets, playwrights, essayists and novelists whose Philippine Center he founded in 1958.

F. Sionil José, the Philippines' most widely translated author, is known best for his epic work, the Rosales saga - five novels encompassing a hundred years of Philippine history - a vivid documentary of Filipino life.

In 1980, Sionil José received the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts.

In 2001, Sionil José was named National Artist for Literature.

In 2004, Sionil José received the Pablo Neruda Centennial Award.

Reviews

[Richard Marney · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of essays of F. Sionil Jose, edited by Alejandro Padilla, which covers a diverse set of topics broadly addressing why the Philippines has lagged behind its Asian neighbors in political, economic and social development. At the core is a dysfunctional society where a small elite has corrupted policy to create extractive, rent-seeking institutions that enrich the few at the expense of the many. As written elsewhere, one only has to observe hard-working and successful Filipinos outside their native land to realize what the country could be.

[trisha · Rating 3 out of 5]

"For while eternity maybe etched in stone, justice is absorbed in the blood to feed the soul and the soul is ethereal for all time."

I appreciate fsj's unapologetic candor. regret emanates from his words so as hope.

[Nickky Faustine de Guzman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of short essays, the book tells us why we are starving individually and nationally, not only of food, but of a lack of culture and sense of nationhood---among others.

[Rainier Moreno-Lacalle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Honest and balanced views of the past decades of Philippine politics and literature.

[Kishel Bactong · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a good read, very rational and historical. It tells us what happened during Martial Law and why our country is in such a bad shape today.

[Loraine Del]

how can i read this????