Merlie Alunan

Merlie M Alunan was awarded Professor Emeritus upon her retirement from the University of the Philippines Tacloban College in 2008. She lives in Tacloban City and continues to write books that support the work of writers in the Visayan mother tongue. Her latest project is an anthology of Waray Literature entitled Tinalonay. Her poetry has been recognised by the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature. Her life work has also been honoured by the Unyon ng mga Manunulat sa Pilipinas (UMPIL, or The Writers’ Union of the Philippines), the Sunthorn Phu Award by the Kingdom of Thailand, the Ananda Coomaraswamy Fellowship of the Republic of India. Two of her books, Sa Atong Dila (University of the Philippines Press, 2015) and Susumaton: Oral Narratives of Leyte (Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2016), won the National Book Award given by the Manila Critics Circle and the National Book Development Board of the Philippines.