AdNU press to launch new titles amidst Covid-19

Despite the many financial setbacks caused by the global pandemic, the Ateneo de Naga University Press continues in its mission to provide reading materials that are relevant to literature, cultural studies, and history of the Bikol region.

With the publication of the newly designed Bikolnon Biography Series (BBS), Fr. Wilmer Joseph S. Tria, Ateneo de Naga University Press Director renews the press’ commitment to stand as the leading publisher of all Bikoliana materials in the world. BBS features Bikolnon who have excelled in their respective fields and have made significant contribution in the life of the region and the world-at-large. Unlike the previous set, this new series carries a separate introduction about the featured person written by anthropologist and film critic Tito Genova Valiente. This newly designed cover which aims to attract young readers is by Andy Pavia, a graduate of the Fine Arts Program of the Ateneo de Manila University.

BBS Issue Number 11 features the exemplary life and works of philanthropist Doña Chito Madrigal written by Alexandra Madrigal Eduque. This personal account

about Doña Chito by one of her grand nieces is described in the introduction as “part-epiphany and part-love letter to a person of such wondrous and colorful character and that this essay may be the only window into Chito Madrigal, the person not the personality, the caring individual not the celebrated society girl.”

Also included in the booklet is a brief article about the foundation which Doña Chito founded in 2004 in Naga City. Known as the Consuelo “Chito” Madrigal Foundation-Bikol, the organization continues to provide academic scholarships, entrepreneurship trainings, housing, and microfinance support system to more than fifteen thousand beneficiaries all over the region. These programs were selected based on what Doña Chito believed were strategic interventions to alleviate poverty in the region. It should be noted that the Madrigal patriarch, Senator Vicente Madrigal was born in the province of Albay.

Kristian Sendon Cordero, the press deputy director who also acts as the managing editor of this series

reveals the list of other Bikolnons that will be featured in the BBS which include the poet and editor Luis Guevara Dato of Baao, Camarines Sur written by Stephen Cenon Talla, one of Dato’s grandsons; Bikol fictionist and essayist Patricio Janer of Sorsogon, written by scholar and UP Professor Raniela Barbaza; Bikol foremost literary historian and critic Ma. Lilia F. Realubit of Naga City written by fictionist Carlos Ojeda Aureus; Catholic bishop and translator Teotimo Pacis, CM, of Tiwi, Albay written by Yale University graduate scholar Jethro Calacday; Bikol writer and translator Rosaulio Imperial, Sr. of Naga City written by Kristian Cordero, and religious leader and community development organizer, Sr. Felicitas de Lima, DSA, of Iriga City, to be written by Bikolana Senator Leila de Lima.

These books may be ordered online thru the Ateneo de Naga University FB Page or through the Savage Mind: Arts, Books, Cinema FB Page.