Gemino Abad receives award in Italy

Barong-clad Abad receiving the award at the Castle of Fiano Romano, Italy

The FEU Community congratulates Mr. Gemino Abad, FEU Elementary Class 1950, High School 1950-1952, a poet and a literary critic, who won Italy ’s top literary prize, the Prize Premio Feronia – Citta di Fiano 2009 under the foreign author category for his work, In Ordinary Time: Poems, Parables, Poetics, a collection of his poems and parables from 1973 to 2003.

The Premio Feronia, which is administered by the town of Fiano in Rome and sponsored by the Associazione Culturale Allegorein, a leading cultural association in Italy, was established in 1992 to recognize innovative literary works by both established and upcoming authors in Italy, free of any commercial considerations. The prize recognizes works in three categories: poetry, fiction, and criticism, and a special prize for foreign authors.

Previous recipients of the Foreign Author Prize include American poet Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones), and Nobel Prize-winning authors Günter Grass and J.M. Coetzee.

Abad currently sits on the Board of Advisers of the U.P. Institute of Creative Writing and teaches creative writing as Emeritus University Professor at the College of Arts and Letters,U.P. Diliman.