Kristian Sendon Cordero
Kristian Sendon Cordero is a poet, fictionist, translator, and filmmaker. His books of poetry in three Philippine languages have won the Madrigal-Gonzales Best First Book Award, the Philippine National Book Awards, and the Gintong Aklat Awards (Golden Book Awards). In 2017, he represented the Philippines in the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa. He was also appointed artist-in-residence by the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He has translated the works of Rainer Maria Rilke, Jorge Luis Borges, Franz Kafka, and Oscar Wilde into Bikol and Filipino. His current projects include the Bikol translations of José Rizal’s two novels. In 2019, he received the Southeast Asian Writers Prize (SEAWRITE) in Bangkok, Thailand, from the Thai monarchy. He was the Artist-In-Residence in the 2022 Stellenbosch Institute of Advanced Study in South Africa. He runs an independent bookshop and art space, Savage Mind, in his home city of Naga.
Reading List
Bikol: A Language of Thought and Devotion
Writing in Bikol has given me the opportunity to look into how this language, long used in the church, can also articulate our other narratives, our other lives. While I remain in constant search for a language that seeks to see its own limits, and I have also ventured into translation, publishing, bookselling, and filmmaking, Bikol remains the province of my heart.
Poetry Mirrors Us: In Tribute to Marne Kilates
It is in line with this ekphrastic imagination that we offer this special section to the memory of Marne Kilates (1952–2024), a Filipino poet from the Bikol region who is also known for his works of translations of Bikol and Filipino poetry into English.