Representative Texts and Authors from Asia

This is your self-instructional learner module in

21 Century Literature from the Philippines and
st

the World. All the activities provided in this lesson

will help you learn and understand:
Representative Texts and Authors from Asia
Specifically, you will be able to:

• identify representative texts and authors from

Asia;
• value the contributions of 21 -century
st

literature writers from Asia;

• write a close analysis and critical

interpretation of a poem; and

• write a rhymed poetry or free verse poem

describing any country in Asia
1. Illustrado by Miguel Syjuco (Philippines)

• Miguel Syjuco is a Filipino writer from Manila

and the grand prize winner of the 2008 Man Asian
Literary Prize for his first novel Illustrado.

• Through a lens of half autobiography and half-

cultural criticism, Miguel Syjuco’s award-
winning novel makes a genuine attempt to
appreciate the diversity and eccentricities of
modern Manila and the fabric of the
contemporary Philippines.
• The story itself—with its light shading of New York
noir and American thriller—tells the story of a young
writer’s apprentice tasked with the self-appointed
mission of writing an account of his deceased
master’s life.

• The action that follows takes readers on a journey of

meta criticism, which does well to entertain while
asking some serious questions about the state of
Filipino literature as a whole.
2. Three Sisters by Bi Feiyu (China)

• Bi Feiyu is a Chinese writer. His works are known for

their complex portrayal of the "female psyche." He
has won some of the highest literary awards in China.
He also wrote the screenplay for Zhang Yimou's 1996
film Shanghai Triad.
• An intense and invigorating examination of
personality and rampant individualism that’s set in the
context of high-Communist China in the years of the
Cultural Revolution, Three Sisters does well to draw
its readers in with a plethora of storylines that touch on
vice, sex, Machiavellian power plays and
contemporary politics all at the same time.
• With its focus on female characters and
their interactions with male patriarchs in the
China all around them, the book continues
in the same vein as Feiyu’s other feminist
works, while its general success was
galvanized in 2010, when it garnered the
prestigious Man Booker Prize for Asian
Literature.
Three Sisters by Bi Feiyu (China)

• Bi Feiyu is a Chinese writer. His works are

known for their complex portrayal of the
"female psyche." He has won some of the
highest literary awards in China. He also wrote
the screenplay for Zhang Yimou's 1996 film
Shanghai Triad.
• An intense and invigorating examination
of personality and rampant individualism
that’s set in the context of high-
Communist China in the years of the
Cultural Revolution, Three Sisters does
well to draw its readers in with a plethora
of storylines that touch on vice, sex,
Machiavellian power plays and
contemporary politics all at the same time.
• With its focus on female characters and
their interactions with male patriarchs in
the China all around them, the book
continues in the same vein as Feiyu’s
other feminist works, while its general
success was galvanized in 2010, when it
garnered the prestigious Man Booker
Prize for Asian Literature.
3. Shin Kyung-sook (South Korea)
• Shin Kyung-sook became the first Korean
writer to win the Man Asian Literary Prize in
2012 for her novel Please Look After Mother.
In Korea, Shin is amongst the most highly
regarded contemporary writers, and she has
won major literary prizes including the
Manhae Literature Prize, the Dong-In
Literary Award and the Yi Sang Literary
Prize.
• Her prose is especially prized for its focus on
exploring the psychological depths of the
human mind. Please Look After Mother is
Shin’s first work to be available in English.

• The novel’s plot is driven by a void, an

absence that deeply unsettles the peripheral
figures as they confront their own selfishness
and hard-heartedness.
• The novel is driven by the guilt of those
closest to ‘Mother’, the saintly, sacrificial old
woman who has gone missing in the center of
Seoul.
• Alternating in perspective, from first to second
to third person, the novel veers from near
accusatory to reflective and explores themes
of family in the midst of South Korea’s rapid
urbanization and modernization of the past
decade.
4. Govind Vinayak Karandikar (India)
(August 23, 1918–March 14, 2010), better known
as Vindā, was an Indian poet, writer, literary
critic, and translator in the Marathi-language.
5. Yosuke Tanaka (Japan)
He was born in Tokyo in 1969 and made his
debut as a poet in the prestigious literary
magazine Eureka at the age of 19. So far, he has
published two poetry books, A Day When the
Mountains are Visible in 1999, and Sweet
Ultramarine Dreams in 2008.
• Though he is certainly not prolific, the
poems he has written over the past twenty
years are rich in stylistic diversity and
unique in his sense of humor, sensitivity to
nature and awareness of the legacy of the
Japanese literary tradition. Tanaka has
emerged as the new poetic sensitivity in
Japan, and is sure to remain one of the most
important figures in 21st – century
Japanese poetry.
_______1. Who was the author of the short story, “A Day When the
Mountains are Visible.”

A. Yusaku Tanaka B. Yazaki Tanaka C.Yosuke Tanaka

_______2.Who is the persona in the poem?

A. The People B. Okutama C. The Author

_______3.After reading the story, what do you think is the theme of the
story?
A. Struggles in Life
B. Looking at the good side of people
C. The Mountains
_______4.What emotion is emphasized by the fourth stanza?

A. Anger B. Sadness C. Fear

______5. What figure of speech is shown in this line, “I needed

the quiet, gentle power of nature so that I not bow my head as the
cruel, double-headed serpent stuck its head from under the
invisible table and flicked its tongue.”

A. Simile B. Metaphor C. Onomatopoeia

Match the names in column A with their
descriptions/definitions in column B.
A B
A. He was born in Tokyo in 1969 and made
____1. Shin Kyung-sook his debut as a poet in the prestigious
____2. Miguel Syjuco literary magazine Eureka at the age of 19.
____3. VindaKarandikar
B. Became the first Korean writer to win
____4. Yosuke Tanaka
the Man Asian Literary Prize in 2012 for her
____5. Bi Feiyu novel Please Look After Mother .
C. His works are known for their complex
portrayal of the "female psyche." He has
won some of the highest literary awards in
China.
 A B
____1. Shin Kyung-sook D. A Filipino writer from Manila and the
____2. Miguel Syjuco grand prize winner of the 2008 Man Asian
____3. VindaKarandikar Literary Prize for his first novel Illustrado.
____4. Yosuke Tanaka
____5. Bi Feiyu E. He was an Indian poet, writer, literary
critic, and translator in the Marathi-
language.