Mindanawon writer John Bengan among artists honored at 18th Ani ng Dangal Awards

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 15 March) — Mindanawon writer and professor John Bengan was recently recognized by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) during the 18th Ani ng Dangal Awards which honors Filipino artists whose work has brought Philippine arts and culture to the international stage.

Bengan was one of two Filipinos among the six winning translators in the PEN Presents x International Booker Prize program. Alongside Christian Jil R. Benitez, he was selected from a shortlist of 12 translation proposals reviewed by a panel of experts, from which the six final winners were selected. 

The program also marked the first time an international translation grant recognized works originally written in Filipino and Cebuano, as well as translators from the Philippines.

^{John Bengan, author of “Armor,” at the book launch on April 21, 2023 at the 6th Republic Cafe in Davao City. Photo by BECA VINE LINOY}

John Bengan translated R. Joseph Dazo’s short story collection Ubang Gabii sa Mango Avenue: Mga Sugilanon (Some Nights in Mango Avenue: Stories) from Cebuano. Bengan’s translation, titled The Man With a Thousand Names, was described by panelist Safae El-Ouahabi as “an intimate look at queer life in the Visayas and Mindanao, full of humour, warmth, and unflinching honesty.”

El-Ouahabi observed that the work blends local color, personal memory, and queer experience in a voice that “feels both immediate and deeply rooted” in Cebuano culture — a sensibility that also resonates with Bengan’s roots in Mindanao and informs his approach to bringing the text into English.

“This is literature from an often-underserved linguistic region, and Bengan’s work makes a compelling case for more stories from the Visayas and Mindanao to be seen, read, and celebrated,” she added.

Bengan is a writer, translator, and Associate Professor at the University of the Philippines Mindanao, where he completed his bachelor’s degree in English in 2005. He also holds an MFA in Creative Writing from The New School, New York. His writing and translations have appeared across Likhaan 6, Kritika Kultura, BooksActually’s Gold Standard, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, Words Without Borders, LIT, ANMLY, Shenandoah, World Literature Today, and The Margins. He has won prizes from the Madrigal-Gonzales Best First Book Award, the Philippines Free Press Literary Awards, and the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature.

^{The University of the Philippines congratulates UP faculty and alumni honored by the NCCA at the 18th Ani ng Dangal Awards}

Bengan’s own fiction, particularly his short fiction collection Armor, writes itself from and into the social and political realities of Mindanao, with stories set in Davao City where the author grew up. The collection brings together 13 narratives that confront issues such as vigilantism, militarization, poverty, and human rights abuses, among others, drawing on landscapes and lives familiar to us. Rather than framing these tensions through simple moral dichotomies, Bengan’s stories complicate easy distinctions between guilt and innocence, danger and safety. By situating intimate, everyday experiences within broader histories of violence and power, the collection presents a portrait of a city — indeed a country — where the personal and the political are deeply intertwined.

The 18th Ani ng Dangal Awards honored 32 artists during rites held at the Metropolitan Theater Ballroom in Manila on February 27 – eight in Music, seven in Dance, five in Architecture and Allied Arts, three in Cinema, two in Visual Arts, two in Design and five in Literary Arts, including Bengan. 

The Ani ng Dangal recognition affirms the growing international visibility of Philippine literature, and Bengan’s work continues to bring stories from Mindanao to wider audiences. (Bea Gatmaytan / MindaNews)