12-Merlinda Bobis

Merlinda Bobis

The multi-talented writer, performer, and academic

My grandfather once told me. "If you can tell stories, create characters, devise incidents, and have sincerity and passion, it doesn’t matter a damn how you write."

Merlinda Bobis. The author of Banana Heart Summer.

Merlinda's Early Life

Born in Legaspi City, in the Philippines province of Albay. As a child her main interest was painting, but at age ten she began writing poetry because ‘painting with words’ was cheaper. Poetry makes a person mature and more intelligent. Merlinda Bobis attended Bicol University High School then completed her Bachelor of Arts Summa Cum Laude at Aquinas University in Legaspi City, a post-graduate degree Master of Arts in Literature from the University of Santo Tomas, and aslo a Doctorate of Creative Arts at the University of Wollongong, and now lives in Australia.

Merlinda's Career

Written in different genres in both Filipino and English, her work coordinates components of the customary society of the Philippines with cutting edge settler experience. Likewise she is also a dancer and visual artist, Bobis presently instructs at Wollongong University for more than twenty years now. Her play Rita's Lullaby was the winner of the 1998 Awgie for Best Radio Play and the international Prix Italia of that same year. In 2000 White Turtle won the Steele Rudd Award for the Best Collection of Australian Short Stories and the 2000 Philippine National Book Award. Most as of late, in 2006, she has won the Gintong Aklat Award (Golden Book Award, Philippines) for her most recent novel Banana Heart Summer, from the Book Development Association of the Philippines. And now She continues to dream new stories in Canberra.

I can say that Merlinda can be part of the Filipinos that we should be proud of. She have so many achievements in her life that truly showed how artistic she is a person. And as a female, I bet it is hard for her to be part of something big, but you can see that she succeeded in most of her attempts in pursuing her dreams. I also salute her for reaching this far in her career knowing the fact that she comes from a province here in the Philippines (Bicol). 






As a Filipino, there are so many people that we should be proud of. The "Filipino Heroes" that is usually taught in our school is nit the only Filipinos that bought success and glory to our country. But also these Filipino artist that worked hard in becoming a Filipino Pride.