Stevan Javellana

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Stevan Javellana (1918-1977) is a Filipino novelist and short-story writer in the English language. He is also known as Esteban Javellana.

[edit] Background

Javellana was born in 1918 in La Paz, Iloilo City, Philippines, twenty-two years after the execution of the Philippine paladin, José Rizal in 1896. He fought as a guerrilla during the Japanese invasion of the Philippines. Javellana stayed in the U.S. after World War II in 1945, but died in the Visayas in 1977 at the age of 59.

[edit] Writing career

Javellana is the author of a best-selling war novel in the United States (U.S.) and Manila, Without Seeing the Dawn, published by Little, Brown and Company in Boston in 1947. His short stories were published in the Manila Times Magazine in the 1950s, among which are Two Tickets to Manila, The Sin of Father Anselmo, Sleeping Tablets, The Fifth Man, The Tree of Peace and Transition.

The title of his only novel in English was derived from one of José Rizal's character in the Spanish-language novel Noli Me Tangere or Touch Me Not. Javellana's 368-paged book has two parts namely: Day and Night. The first part, Day, narrates the story of a pre-war barrio and its people in the Panay Island and Iloilo City, and Night, which begins in the start of World War II in both the U.S. and the Philippines, while the second part, Night retells the story of the resistance movement against occupying military forces of the barrio people first seen in Day. His novel sold 125,000 copies in the U.S. and was reprinted in paperback edition in Manila by Alemar's-Phoenix in 1976.

The same novel was made into a film by the Filipino film maker and director, Lino Brocka under the title Santiago!, which starred the Filipino actor and former presidential candidate, Fernando Poe, Jr. and the Filipino actress, Hilda Koronel. It was also made into a mini-series film for Philippine television. The published novel received praises from the New York Times, New York Sun and Chicago Sun. Without Seeing the Dawn, the novel, became the culmination of Javellana's short-story writing career. The said novel was also known under the title The Lost Ones.