Gala Night Program.p65 - Silliman University

The 50th Anniversary Panel of Writer/Critics
DR. ROWENA TIEMPO-TORREVILLAS
teaches nonfiction writing and transnational
literature at the University of Iowa. Prior to joining
the English Department faculty at the University
of Iowa, she was for nearly two decades
administrator of the International Writing Program.
She holds the Ph.D. in English and Literature from
Silliman; her career includes the Gawad Balagtas
from the Writers’ Union, two Philippine National
Book Awards, as well as the Palanca for poetry and
fiction; the UMPIL Distinguished Writer Award in
1984, Outstanding Educator of the Year at the
National Gintong Sipag Award in 1985, Philippine
National Book Award, Progress 2002 Famous Fifty
in Iowa City. She writes fiction, poetry, nonfiction
and literary criticism. Her books include The Sea
Gypsies Stay, Flying Over Kansas: Personal Views,
Mountain Sacraments: Selected Poems, Upon the
Willows and Other Stories, and The World Comes to
Iowa. Her works have been translated into
numerous languages, including Arabic, Bengali,
Chinese, Hebrew, Russian. She and her husband
Lem live in Iowa City.
KIRPAL SINGH, who shares the same name with
an Indian spiritual leader, is known worldwide as
a scholar and writer. Born in Singapore in 1949, he
stayed very briefly in Malaysia when he was a child
and then went back again to Singapore to get his
education. While in primary school, he started
dabbling in poetry, and eventually, while studying
Arts for his A-levels in Raffles Institution, he
published his work in Singapore Pot-pourri, where
he compiled poems, prose, and plays by local
authors. Singh graduated with honors at the
National University of Singapore where he met his
professors Edwin Thumboo and Lee Tzu Pheng—
whom he credits with playing significant roles in
his literary growth. To date, Singh has published
not only books of poetry, but also research articles
and critical writings which have appeared in
international publications such as the Ariel, Diogene,
Commonwealth Novel In English, Literary Criterion,
Quadrant, Southern Review, and Westerly. Singh also
has overseen the editing of different publications;
he was also editor of the literary journal World
Literature Written in English. He has attended
various international writers’ festivals, and has
been to Adelaide, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Toronto,
and Kent to read his works. In 1993 and 1994, he
was the first Asian director of the Commonwealth
Writers’ Prize. Later in 2004, he became the first
Asian and non-American director of the American
Creativity Association’s (ACA) board. At present,
he is the Assistant Professor at the Singapore
Management University.
CÉSAR RUÌZ AQUINO finished his Ph. D. in
Creative Writing at Silliman University and
currently teaches Literature and Creative Writing
courses in this same institution. Winner of various
international (most recent of which is the 2005 Sea-
Write Award from the queen of Thailand) and
national literary awards, Dr. Aquino has published
World Without End, a collection of poems; Chronicles
of Suspicion, a collection of short stories; Checkmeta:
The Cesar Ruiz Aquino Reader, another collection of
stories and poems; and In Samarkand: Poems and
Verseliterations, another book of poems.