ESTRELLA D. ALFON

1917-1983

Estrella Alfon was born in

San Nicolas, Cebu City on

March 27, 1917.

Even if her parents were

shoekeepers, she

managed to attend

college to study medicine.

PERSONAL LIFE

During her college, she was mistakenly diagnosed with tuberculosis. She was sent to a sanitarium to be quarantined and decided to resign from her pre-medical education. She had the Associate of Arts degree instead.

Her children are: Alan Rivera, Esmeralda "Mimi" Rivera, Brian Alfon, Estrella "Twinkie" Alfon, and Rita "Daday" Alfon (deceased). She has 10 grandchildren.

She died on December 28, 1983, due to a heart attack which she suffered on-stage during the Awards night of the Manila Film Festival.

PROFESSIONAL LIFE & ACHIEVEMENTS

Estrella Alfon’s

She was a nude storywriter, playwright, and journalist. In spite of being a proud Cebuana, she wrote almost exclusively in English.

Her first story, “Grey Confetti” was published in 1935. She was the only female member of the Veronicans, an

avant garde group of writers in the 1930s led by Francisco Arcellana and H.R. Ocampo, she was also regarded as their muse. The Veronicans are recognized as the first group of Filipino writers to write almost exclusively in English and were formed prior to the World War II. She is also reportedly the most prolific Filipina writer prior to World War II. She was a regular contributor to Manila-based national magazines, she had several stories cited in Jose Garcia Villa’s annual honor rolls.

Professional Life

In the 1950s, her short story, "Fairy Tale for the City", was condemned by the Catholic League of the Philippines as being "obscene". She was even brought to court on these charges. While many of her fellow writers did stand by her, many did not. These events hurt her deeply.

In spite of having only an A.A. degree, she was eventually appointed as a professor of Creative Writing at the University of the Philippines, Manila. She was a member of the U.P. Writers Club, she held the National Fellowship in Fiction post at the U.P. Creative Writing Center in 1979.

She would also serve on the Philippine Board of Tourism in the 1970s.

1940: A collection of her early short stories, “Dear Esmeralda,” won Honorable Mention in the Commonwealth Literary Award.

1961-1962: Four of her one-act plays won all the prizes in the Arena Theater Play Writing Contest: “Losers Keepers” (first prize), “Strangers” (second prize), “Rice” (third prize), and “Beggar” (fourth prize).

1961-1962: Won top prize in the Palanca Contest for “With Patches of Many Hues.”

1974: Second place Palanca Award for her short story, "The White Dress".

1979: National Fellowship in Fiction post at the U.P. Creative Writing Center.

Achievements

STORIES

Estrella Alfon’s

MAGNIFICENCE( 1 9 6 0 )

The story started when a man named Vicente came to the

house of the two children to tutor them with their class

works. The family trusted him for they thought that he was

always so gentle, kind, and there was nothing to fear of

when he’s around. Vicente promised the two children that he

would be bringing two pencils for each of them. Vicente has

always favored the girl and promised that he would bring

her the biggest pencil he can find.

Two weeks later, he was earlier than the usual time to tutor the children. He asked the boy to get a glass of water for him so he would be left alone with the girl. The girl got frightened and ran away from Vicente. As she did, the mother came and saw what was about to happen. She told the children to go to their room and kept on slapping Vicente until he was brought to the door and ran away to the shadows. The mother bathed the girl and the girl asked her mother to burn the pencils before she slept.

SERVANT GIRL

This is a story of a humble good-looking house helper named

Rosa and her adult infatuation. Rosa is portrayed as a

physically and verbally abused servant girl to an obnoxious

but at times kind mistress. Rosa fantasized about the

cochero whom she named to be "Angel" who later-on known

to be as Pedro. She imagined him as different from other

men, more gallant, gentler, and her rescuer from her

miserable life with her mistress.

Angel became Rosa's hope and embodiment of desire to be free from servitude. Her admirer Sancho on the other hand, was rough and rude towards her and violently hurt her. She ran from her mistress' house and Sancho's boorish arms. She longed to find her "Angel". But her savior does not really exist. Angel was just a figure that she invented. In the end, Rosa just accepts her fortune as a miserable servant. Instead, the man she believed to be her rescuer, was the one who returned her back to her pitiful life.

ESTRELLA ALFON

Praises for

“Alfon was one writer who unashamedly drew from her own real-life experiences. In some stories, the first-person narrator is “Estrella” or “Esther.” She is not just a writer, but one who consciously refers to her act of writing the stories. In other stories, Alfon is still easily identifiable in her first-person reminiscences of the past: evacuation during the Japanese occupation; estrangement from a husband; life after the war. In the Espeleta stories, Alfon uses the editorial “we” to indicate that as a member of that community, she shares their feelings and responses towards the incidents in the story. But she sometimes slips back to being a first-person narrator. The impression is that although she shares the sentiments of her neighbors, she is still a distinct personality who detaches her self from the scene in order to understand it better. This device of separating herself as narrator from the other characters is contained within the larger strategy of… distantiation? that of the writer from her strongly autobiographical material.’’

~Thelma E. Arambulo

“Estrella Alfon writes about everyday life, but she captures the details in this dazzling, intense light. She could write about the ordinary and make it extraordinary. She could write about a day on the farm or a picnic with friends or a poor laundry woman wishing that her life were different because she was being abused by her mistress. They were very simple stories about ordinary people, whose lives we don't know until she uncovers them in the stories. I was just hooked. Whatever designs my mother may have had, they worked. I feel so much more fulfilled because I had that early gift.’’

~ Luisa Igloria (interview)

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estrella_Alfon

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Summary_of_magnificence_by_estrella_alfon

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Summary_of_servant_girl_by_estrella_D_alfon

Google images

THE END