About | Santiago Villafania
Santiago Villafania is a bilingual Filipino poet who writes in English and in his native language of Pangasinan. Born in Tuliao, Sta. Barbara, Pangasinan on 31 January 1971, Villafania graduated with a degree of Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Pangasinan in 1991. Villafania advocates for the resurgence of Pangasinan as a literary language. His works in the vernacular are some of the most representative, if not among the few that comprise that Pangasinan contemporary literary body. In his first book Balikas na Caboloan (Verses from Caboloan), the Pangasinan anlong resurfaces asserting its tradition amidst intersecting and pollinating genres and literary influences. His book of poems, Malagilion: Sonnets tan Villanelles , is an attempt to open the propylaea of literary renaissance in Pangasinan. This second book by Pangasinan’s leading poet today is impressive in both form and substance. Villafania has created 300 sonnets and 50 villanelles in his own language that a...