Resil B. Mojares, National Artist for Literature, dies at 83
MANILA, Philippines – Renowned writer, historian, and literary critic Resil B. Mojares died on the morning of September 5, his family confirmed. Mojares had just celebrated his 83rd birthday a day earlier.
“Papa Resil was a pillar of our family, and although we will miss him dearly every day, we find comfort in knowing that he is now reunited with our dear mother, Sally, who left us in 2022. Together once again, resting peacefully in eternity,” his daughter Leigh Go Mojares wrote.
Mojares was named National Artist for Literature in 2018 alongside six other big names in arts and culture, including composer Ryan Cayabyab and cartoonist Larry Alcala.
Among the late writer’s most impactful works is the 1997 book House of Memory, a personal and cultural essay collection for which he received a Philippine National Book Award. He also authored The Feast of the Santo Niño: An Introduction to the History of a Cebuano Devotion, and Interrogations in Philippine Cultural History and The War Against the Americans: Resistance and Collaboration in Cebu, 1899-1906, to name a few.
Interrogations in Philippine Cultural History (2017) and Enigmatic Objects: Notes Towards a History of the Museum in the Philippines (2023) would be the last of his published works before his death.
In 1971, he also became a Carlos Palanca Memorial awardee, having received the second prize in the English Short Story for his work Beast in the Fields.
Mojares hails from Polanco, Zamboanga del Norte, but later moved to Cebu City, where he obtained his bachelor of arts and masters degrees from the University of San Carlos. He had served as Professor Emeritus in the same university.
The Origins and Rise of the Filipino Novel author was also the founding director of the Cebuano Studies Center, a research center on all things Cebuano culture.
Throughout his career, he was also a visiting professor at several universities across Singapore, the US, and Japan.
Literary community mourns passing of a legend
Acclaimed writer Jose “Butch” Dalisay Jr. had regarded Mojares as one of his personal heroes. The late literary great had written the blurbs for Dalisay’s short story collection Voyager and Other Fictions.
“We were friends in that rather formal way aging men assume when they sit across a table over coffee — no backslapping, no intimacies exchanged, just a wry understanding of how things work. I think the most personal we ever got was when I sent him a message condoling with him on the passing of his wife Sally a few years ago,” Dalisay wrote in a Facebook post.
“Rest up, Resil, now you can smoke and scribble all you want in that great coffeeshop in the sky.”
“Naku. Laking kawalan para sa history ng Bisayan lit. Nakikidalamhati kami sa pamilya ni Resil (What a huge loss to the history of Bisaya literature. We are grieving with Resil’s family),” fellow National Artist for Literature Virgilio “Rio Alma” Almario said in a Facebook comment.
Literary circles and organizations also joined in mourning Mojares’ death, including the Unyon ng mga Manunulat sa Pilipinas (UMPIL), which honored him with the Gawad Pambansang Alagad ni Balagtas in 1997.
Government agencies had also joined in to pay their respects for Mojares — with the National Historical Commission of the Philippines and the National Commission for Culture and the Arts remembering him for his extensive contributions to Filipino and Cebuano cultural history and literature.
Mojares was married to Salvacion “Sally” Ouano Go, with whom he shared four children. His wife passed away in 2022. – Rappler.com
