| Miguel Syjuco | |
|---|---|
| Born | November 17, 1976 |
| Nationality | Filipino |
| Occupation | Writer |
Miguel Syjuco (November 17, 1976) is a Filipino writer from Manila and the Man Asian Literary Prize grand prize winner for 2008 known for his novel Ilustrado.
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Syjuco graduated from high school in 1993 from the Cebu International School. He received a degree in English Literature from the Ateneo de Manila University in 2000 and completed his MFA from Columbia University in 2004. In early 2011 he completed a PhD in literature from the University of Adelaide.
Syjuco is the son of Augusto Syjuco Jr., a politician allied with the party of Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.[1]
His novel, Ilustrado, won the Grand Prize for the Novel in English at the 2008 Palanca Awards. In November of the same year, he won the Man Asian Literary Prize also for Ilustrado.[2]
In 2010, the novel won the QWF Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction,[3] Quebec's top literary prize, and was a New York Times Notable Book of 2010[4] as well as a Globe & Mail Top 100 of 2010.[5] The novel was also a finalist for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize[6], a finalist for the Amazon First Novel Award[7], and a finalist for the 2010 Grand Prix du Livre de Montreal[8]. In late 2010, Ilustrado was published in translation in Spanish (Tusquets)[9], Swedish (Natur och Kultur), and Dutch (Mouria).
In 2011, Ilustrado joined books by David Mitchell, Aleksandar Hemon, Marie NBiaye, and Wells Tower for the Premio von Rezzori.[10] It was also among the three top finalists for the $55,000 Prix Jan Michalski,[11] an annual Swiss prize for the best international book, as well as the Prix Courrier International, which honors the best international books translated in France.[12]
In 2011, it was published in translation in Serbian (Geopoetika), French (Editions Christian Bourgois), Catalan (Tusquets), Italian (Fazi), Japanese (Hakusuisha), Czech (Jota), German (Klett-Cotta), and Brazilian Portuguese (Compahnia das Letras).
Syjuco is represented by Peter Straus at the Rogers, Coleridge and White Literary Agency in London, and by Melanie Jackson in New York City. He has already sold a second book to North American publishers.[1]