Premium
Filipino women writers in English
Author(s) -
Manlapaz Edna Zapanta
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
world englishes
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.6
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1467-971X
pISSN - 0883-2919
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-971x.2004.00343.x
Subject(s) - elite , perspective (graphical) , subject (documents) , class (philosophy) , middle class , gender studies , sociology , history , literature , political science , visual arts , art , law , epistemology , computer science , philosophy , politics , library science
Any study whose subject is Filipino women writers in English must begin with a demographic profile, since their position within Philippine society determines their perspective. Only then might we understand why they write what they write, as well as for whom they write. The single most important demographic fact about Filipino women writers in English is that they belong to the middle‐class intellectual elite. Predictably, these women tend to write about the middle‐class world they know intimately by direct experience ‐ a formidable limitation on the range of their art. But in recent times a few Filipino women have made deliberate efforts to overcome this limitation by writing historical novels which, by definition, create a fictional world populated by characters drawn from all the classes that comprise a nation.