43 Facts About Nick Joaquin

1.

Nicomedes "Nick" Marquez Joaquin was a Filipino writer and journalist best known for his short stories and novels in the English language.

2.

Nick Joaquin wrote using the pen name Quijano de Manila.

3.

Nick Joaquin has been considered one of the most important Filipino writers, along with Jose Rizal and Claro M Recto.

4.

Nick Joaquin was the fifth out of the ten children of Don Leocadio Nick Joaquin and Salome Marquez.

5.

Nick Joaquin retired after he was wounded in action and moved on to a prolific career as a lawyer in Manila and the southern province of Laguna.

6.

Nick Joaquin was trained by Americans in English to teach at the public schools when the United States colonized the Philippines.

7.

The Nick Joaquin family lived in a two-story residential and commercial building, greatly uncommon at that time, on Herran Street in Paco, Manila.

8.

Nick Joaquin was said to have had an extremely happy childhood.

9.

The Nick Joaquin household communicated in Spanish and heard mass regularly.

10.

Nick Joaquin is a notably devout Christian and continued being so his whole life.

11.

The young Nick Joaquin was only twelve years old and this signalled a big change in their family.

12.

Nick Joaquin attended Paco Elementary School and went to Mapa High School for secondary education.

13.

An avid reader, Nick Joaquin, used this time to pursue his passion for it.

14.

Nick Joaquin's parents had encouraged his interest in books early on.

15.

Nick Joaquin already had a borrower's card at the National Library when he was ten.

16.

Nick Joaquin purveyed his father's personal library and loved the bookstores in downtown Manila.

17.

Nick Joaquin read voraciously and intently, he read everything that had caught his eye.

18.

Nick Joaquin read American magazines and discovered the fiction of Booth Tarkington, Somerset Maugham, F Scott Fitzgerald, and Ernest Hemingway.

19.

Nick Joaquin had felt a strong connection with the story of Don Quixote; he felt like he could identify with the character.

20.

Nick Joaquin notably heard mass daily and was fond of praying the Holy Rosary.

21.

Nick Joaquin only stayed in Hong Kong for two years before returning to Manila.

22.

Nick Joaquin continued publishing stories and poems between 1934 and 1941 in the Herald Mid-Week Magazine and the Sunday Tribune Magazine.

23.

The young Nick Joaquin had to look for ways to support his family.

24.

Nick Joaquin's work had appeared in the Philippine Review, an English-language journal, in 1943.

25.

Nick Joaquin was beginning to spark an interest from readers.

26.

Nick Joaquin soon attracted notice for his poems, stories and plays, as well as his journalism under the pen name Quijano de Manila.

27.

Nick Joaquin's journalism was both intellectual and provocative, an unknown genre in the Philippines at that time, and raised the country's level of reportage.

28.

Nick Joaquin secured the release of imprisoned writer Jose F Lacaba.

29.

At a ceremony on Mount Makiling attended by First Lady Imelda Marcos, Nick Joaquin delivered an invocation to Maria Makiling a diwata and the mountain's mythical maiden.

30.

Nick Joaquin touched on the importance of freedom and the artist.

31.

Nick Joaquin died of cardiac arrest in the early morning of April 29,2004, at his home in San Juan, Metro Manila.

32.

Nick Joaquin was then editor of Philippine Graphic magazine, where he worked with Juan P Dayang, the magazine's first publisher.

33.

Nick Joaquin was nominated by Free Press Editor Teodoro Locsin who mentions that the journalistic work of Nick Joaquin has raised the journalism to the level of literature.

34.

The literary ability of Nick Joaquin allowed him to earn multiple distinction and honors in the field of Philippine literature.

35.

Nick Joaquin's characters are mostly cultured intellectuals of past generations, while the opposing characters are usually from the materialistic modern age.

36.

Critics make a connection of this theological reality used by Nick Joaquin to reflect Philippine culture and the intermingling of Christian and pagan values.

37.

The Late Nick Joaquin is defined by critics as the time 10 years after his absence from the field of fiction.

38.

Nick Joaquin wrote under the pseudonym of Quijano de Manila.

39.

The beginning of Late Nick Joaquin was seen after he had published two significant essays and three plays after 1975.

40.

In terms of the development of the English language, Nick Joaquin was able to contribute to this by adding Filipino feelings, values, and nuances.

41.

The English language used by Nick Joaquin became a medium to express his literary artistry and Filipino Patriotism.

42.

Nick Joaquin was able to publish a large body of literary works during his time and through this, he has had great contribution to Philippine literature in English.

43.

Nick Joaquin argued that Philippine letters during the 1950s and 1960s were polarized into extremes: literature and journalism.