PREFACE
This book really started NVM's passion with the art of writing. Swallow Press in Denver, Colorado, first printed the book in 1947. Professor Alan Swallow believe that these short stores abou the Philippine life were worth sharingwith American readers. The first to appreciate this slim volume of short stories was the Director of Humanities Division of the Rockefeller Foundation, Dr Charles Fahs. He came to the Philippines and sought out NVM who was then editor of the Evening News Maagazine. In 1949 NVM was named the first Filipino fellow of the Humanities Division of the Rockefeller Foundation.
NVM did not try to earn a degree. He wanted instead to meet with writers and critics teaching in selected universities in the U.S. He started in Stanford University and met Wallace Stegner and Katherine Porter. His two classmates in Stanford, Ed Loomis (University of Santa Barbara) and Bob Williams (of California State University, Hayward) were later responsible in asking NVM to go to the U.S. to teach.
When NVM came home in 1950, he started to teach creative writing in University of Santo Tomas, Philippine Women's University, and University of the Philippines."
Narita M. Gonzalez
U.P. Diliaman, 2001 - from Amzon