RP writer gets Magsaysay award

RP writer gets Magsaysay award

MANILA (AFP): Nick Joaquin, 79, one of the Philippines' foremost writers, was named winner of this year's Ramon Magsaysay award for literature, the awards foundation announced here yesterday.

Joaquin, a novelist, playwright and journalist, who was named a national artist of the Philippines in 1976, was given the Magsaysay award for "exploring the mysteries of the Filipino body and soul," the award committee said in a statement.

Among the works of Joaquin, who still writes regular newspaper columns, are the play Portrait of the Artist as a Filipino and the novels The Woman with Two Navels.

The Magsaysay award is named after a popular Philippine president who died in a plane crash in 1957.