On translating the Rizal biography, 'The First Filipino'

By Danton Remoto

May 04, 2024 12:07 am

I TRANSLATED the late Ambassador Leon Maria Guerrero's prize-winning biography of Jose Rizal, 'The First Filipino,' into Filipino. In an act of verbal gymnastics, I am translating that introduction into English for this column.

Like Ambeth Ocampo, I first read 'The First Filipino' when I was a college student at the Ateneo de Manila University. The book delighted me because Guerrero told the life of Rizal as if it were a 19th-century novel.

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