The Balikbayan Artist

A tale of the artist’ s role in troubled times set amid a dictatorship Farm-laborer-turned-artist Vance Igorta returns to the Philippines as a balikbayan after nearly fifty years in the United States. He is a member of the Manong generation, the largest diaspora of Filipinos who worked physically demanding jobs, mostly in California’ s agricultural fields. The Balikbayan Artist— inspired by and dedicated to Venancio C. Igarta (1912– 2000), the real-life leading artist of the Manong Generation— takes readers from the early twentieth century to the present day when Vance Igorta’ s art is being discovered anew. Igorta’ s legacy is validated for allowing his art to address the tensions of his time instead of keeping it solely entrenched in aesthetic concerns. The artist’ s choice reflects what he learned as a voraciously self-educated person: that in circumstances where power corrupts, what makes anyone and everyone dangerous is love.

Eileen Tabios has released over seventy collections of poetry, fiction, art, essays, and experimental writings from publishers around the world. Translated into thirteen languages, she has also edited, co-edited, or conceptualized fifteen anthologies, which has involved hundreds of other poets and writers. Recent releases include an autobiography, The Inventor; a poetry collection, Because I Love You, I Become War; an art monograph, Drawing the Six Directions; a flash fiction collection (in collaboration with harry k stammer), Getting To One; a novel, DoveLion: A Fairy Tale for Our Times (with a Filipino translation, KalapatingLeon, by Danton Remoto); two French books, Prises (Double Take) (translated by Fanny Garin) and La Vie Erotique de L’ art (translated by Samuel Rochery); and a Spanish edition, Uno, Dos, Tres: Selecció n de Hay(na)kus (One, Two, Three: Selected Hay(na)ku Poems) (translated by Rebeka Lembo). Her body of work further includes a first poetry book, Beyond Life Sentences, which received the Philippines’ National Book Award for Poetry, as well as invention of the hay(na)ku, a twenty-first century diasporic poetic form; the MDR Poetry Generator that can create poems totaling theoretical infinity; the ‘ Flooid’ poetry form that’ s rooted in a good deed; and the monobon poetry form based on the monostich. Her writing and editing works have received recognition through awards, grants, and residencies. More information is at http://eileenrtabios.com