Sugilanong Sugboanon: Cebuano Fiction 1941-2005
edited and translated by Erlinda K. Alburo, Vicente Bandillo, Simeon Dumdum Jr. and Resil B. Mojares

On the eve of the Second World War, the short story and novel in Cebuano were already established literary forms. The end of the war saw the return of newspapers and magazines and the publishing of Cebuano fiction with even greater vigor.

While Cebuano writing suffered marginalization in the scheme of a national literature and culture in the postwar years, there has been a recent upsurge not only in scholarship on regional literary traditions, but also in the number of young Cebuanos writing in Cebuano instead of English.

In the work of some practitioners, many of them represented in this book, Cebuano fiction has acquired a more mellow, more confident voice. The output of English-Cebuano fictionists, also here showcased, has added a healthy, cross-fertilizing influence on contemporary Cebuano writing.

With the interest in the recovery of local traditions and awareness of the need for more dynamic cross-regional enrichments, Cebuano literature must seize its future, and take the path that opens out into a territory of as yest unrealized possibilities.

-From the Introduction by Resil B. Mojares