In Conversation with Author Luis Francia

Description

Luis H. Francia sat down for a conversation with Martin Villanueva in the Emmanuel S. Torres Literary Arts Room in the George SK Ty Learning Innovation Wing of Areté last July 26, 2018. Among the topics discussed were Francia’s experiences studying in the Ateneo under Torres, writing as a New York-based Filipino in a time of Duterte and Trump, and the differences of writing in different genres. Francia also recorded a reading of eight poems written in light of today’s political climate.

Francia is a multi-genre writer whose latest volume, RE: Reflections, Reviews, and Recollections (University of the Philippines Press, 2015), won a National Book Award from the National Book Development Board and the Manila Critics’ Circle for Best Collection of Essays in English in 2016. He graduated cum laude from the Ateneo de Manila University with an AB in Humanities in 1964, and was most recently a visiting professor with the university’s Fine Arts and English departments.

Martin Villanueva is Chair of the Department of Fine Arts, is Associate Editor for the Literary Section of Kritika Kultura, and helps coordinate programming for Areté. His conversation with Francia is the second of a series to be recorded for Areté in collaboration with Kritika Kultura and the Department of Fine Arts’s BFA Creative Writing program.