MILAN — In a few days, the Palanca Foundation will be sending out notifications to the winners of the 72nd Palanca Awards, which will be followed by the awards night ceremony sometime next month.
In about a week, The Peter Solis Nery Foundation for Hiligaynon Literature and the Arts, Inc. will also announce the winners of the 2024 Peter’s Prize for Adapted Story, a new category in the annual contest that gives a platform for new voices and newer forms of storytelling.
49 stories from all over the country have been qualified to this year’s Peter’s Prize, 16 were longlisted, and six were shortlisted for an independent jury to evaluate, rate, and choose the eventual winners.
I happened to be the first reader of the entries to the Peter’s Prize. And the first stories I read made me cry because they were pretty badass and outstanding.
On hindsight, I would say about a third of the work was screaming to be read as winners. The storytelling is strong, the author’s voice is confident, the creativity of the adaptation is masterful, if not genius. I started reading the stories in Sweden, and it took me two weeks to read the 49 stories and mark down the 16 that were bursting with wild energy and singularity.
While touring the Baltics, I narrowed down the 16 to six exceptional stories that I feel are most representative of the ideals and sensibilities of the Peter’s Prize. And when I arrived in this city, I composed a jury of nine from the honor roll of Peter’s Prize medalists. Nine jurors for six stories! I feel good about that because I also believe in the democracy of literature.
In the same week I arrived in Italy, I was asked to evaluate five plays for a national writers’ workshop. And again, I was floored by the audacity and ballsiness of the plays. Two plays out of five are most commendable to me.
Not all stories get recognized in the national scale. Not all entries sent to a contest get a prize. But this shouldn’t dishearten writers. As my recent experience has shown, almost a third of every batch we produce and gather make for remarkable, if not superlative, literature.
It is for this very reason that the Peter’s Prize was created: To provide an incentive and encourage the production of new literature that are fresh, exciting, experimental, bold and daring.
Of course, we are excited for this year’s Palanca winners. And I am pretty excited for the Peter’s Prize winners, too. But having read many exciting and praiseworthy stories myself, my prayer is for these wonderful stories to see the light of publication. Because they are our brave, bold, new Philippine literature.
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(Peter Solis Nery is a multi-awarded Filipino poet, fictionist, filmmaker and playwright who divides his time living in the Philippines and traveling around the world. He is a Palanca Awards Hall of Famer, and the first Filipino author invited to the Sharjah International Book Fair in the United Arab Emirates.)
