The World Is Still Beautiful

Lazaro Francisco (1898-1980), recognized as a National Artist for Literature, is a landmark novelist in Philippine literary history who wrote under the tradition of social realist fiction. He was a recipient of the Tanglaw ng Lahi Award from Ateneo de Manila University in 1979, in recognition of how he dedicated his life and talent towards striving for Filipinism and the Filipino identity. Some of his classic works include Bayang Nagpatiwakal (1947), Sugat ng Alaala (1949), and Daluyong (1962).

Mona P. Highley was a distinguished scholar of the Tagalog novel and an associate professor of the University of the Philippines back in the late 1960s and early 1970s. She played a key part in the success of the Sampaksaan ng Nobelistang Tagalog, a lecture series on the Tagalog novel, and the Pamana ng Panitikan ng Pilipinas, an organization of Tagalog writers.