The Author
Gilbert Luis R. Centina III (May 19, 1947 - May 1, 2020) of the religious Order of St. Augustine was a leading voice in Catholic poetry.
He fought to preserve Spanish as a cultural language in the Philippines, asserting that the tongue forms the core of his homeland's soul. For his body of poetic work in Spanish, he was posthumously awarded the Premio José Rizal de last Letras Filipinas 2020. According to Instituto Juan Andrés, the organization responsible for Europe's most important prize for Hispano-Filipino literature, his work over the years "has become an anthroponymic treasure, memory of parishioners, companions, and friends who give a title to a fresco of earthly life, with its glories and miseries..."
After joining the Augustinian Order at Convento de San Agustín in Manila in 1964, he studied at the University of Santo Tomas, the Philippines' royal and pontifical university, where he graduated with a BA in Classical Studies and with Latin honors (cum laude) in his three ecclesiastical degrees: Bachelor of Philosophy, Bachelor of Theology and Licentiate of Theology. He earned his Master of Arts in comparative literature from the University of the Philippines. He completed the coursework toward a Ph.D. in comparative literature at another state university. A year after his ordination to the priesthood in 1975, he briefly served as a missionary in Peru.
His works have been widely anthologized in Philippine high school and college textbooks. Besides English, he wrote in Spanish and two Philippine languages, Hiligaynon and Tagalog. From the Asian Catholic Publishers and the Archdiocese of Manila under Jaime Cardinal Sin, he received the Catholic Authors Award in 1996.
He was the author of literary criticism (Spiritual Quest in Verse), two novels (Wages of Sin, Rubrics and Runes), and nine poetry collections, namely Recovecos/Crevices, Plus ultra y otros poemas/Plus Ultra and Other Poems, Madre España and Illustrated Poems, Diptych/Díptico, Getxo and Other Poems, Triptych and Collected Poems, Somewhen, Glass of Liquid Truths, and Our Hidden Galaxette). His first novel, Wages of Sin, a roman á clef written under a nom de guerre, was published in Honolulu in 1988. His second novel, Rubrics and Runes, was published in June 2013. It tells the story of a friar caught in the conventual and secular politics vortex when the two supposedly incongruous worlds collide.
For many years, he served as a school chaplain and pastor of a Manhattan parish church. He wrote hundreds of newspaper columns and articles and contributed poems and fiction to journals and magazines. A well-traveled writer, he visited many places in Europe and Asia, including Tibet. As an Augustinian friar, he worked and lived in North and South America. On May 1, 2020, he died from complications due to Covid-19 in León, Spain, where he spent the last seven years of his life.
He fought to preserve Spanish as a cultural language in the Philippines, asserting that the tongue forms the core of his homeland's soul. For his body of poetic work in Spanish, he was posthumously awarded the Premio José Rizal de last Letras Filipinas 2020. According to Instituto Juan Andrés, the organization responsible for Europe's most important prize for Hispano-Filipino literature, his work over the years "has become an anthroponymic treasure, memory of parishioners, companions, and friends who give a title to a fresco of earthly life, with its glories and miseries..."
After joining the Augustinian Order at Convento de San Agustín in Manila in 1964, he studied at the University of Santo Tomas, the Philippines' royal and pontifical university, where he graduated with a BA in Classical Studies and with Latin honors (cum laude) in his three ecclesiastical degrees: Bachelor of Philosophy, Bachelor of Theology and Licentiate of Theology. He earned his Master of Arts in comparative literature from the University of the Philippines. He completed the coursework toward a Ph.D. in comparative literature at another state university. A year after his ordination to the priesthood in 1975, he briefly served as a missionary in Peru.
His works have been widely anthologized in Philippine high school and college textbooks. Besides English, he wrote in Spanish and two Philippine languages, Hiligaynon and Tagalog. From the Asian Catholic Publishers and the Archdiocese of Manila under Jaime Cardinal Sin, he received the Catholic Authors Award in 1996.
He was the author of literary criticism (Spiritual Quest in Verse), two novels (Wages of Sin, Rubrics and Runes), and nine poetry collections, namely Recovecos/Crevices, Plus ultra y otros poemas/Plus Ultra and Other Poems, Madre España and Illustrated Poems, Diptych/Díptico, Getxo and Other Poems, Triptych and Collected Poems, Somewhen, Glass of Liquid Truths, and Our Hidden Galaxette). His first novel, Wages of Sin, a roman á clef written under a nom de guerre, was published in Honolulu in 1988. His second novel, Rubrics and Runes, was published in June 2013. It tells the story of a friar caught in the conventual and secular politics vortex when the two supposedly incongruous worlds collide.
For many years, he served as a school chaplain and pastor of a Manhattan parish church. He wrote hundreds of newspaper columns and articles and contributed poems and fiction to journals and magazines. A well-traveled writer, he visited many places in Europe and Asia, including Tibet. As an Augustinian friar, he worked and lived in North and South America. On May 1, 2020, he died from complications due to Covid-19 in León, Spain, where he spent the last seven years of his life.
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