Zelda Soriano

Zelda Soriano

Zelda dT Soriano was first known as the editor-in-chief of the official student publication of the University of the Philippines Los Banos who left the university to serve as a youth member of the National Democratic Front’s (NDF) panels in the negotiations between the Philippine government and the NDF for peace in 1988 and for the release of prisoners of war in 1989. Her anthology of short stories, vignettes and poems, 'Kung Saan Ako Pupunta', was published by her friends in 1993. Some of her stories and poems were re-published in other literary books and translated in several languages. Carolina S. Hau in her review On the Subject of the Nation: Filipino Writings from the Margins, 1981-2004 (Ateneo de Manila University Press)describes that the revolutionary bodies in Zelda's book are “full of sense and sensibility, and blur the divides between public and private, between ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’…Soriano’s stories capture the playfulness, humor, independence and loyalty of women warriors, showing how these qualities make up (and are brought out by) what is best in the revolutionary struggle, while conveying something of the exhiliration that women feel when the discipline and dangers of revolution afford important means of escape if not liberation from traditional gender roles and expectations”. After several years of community work in the Southern Tagalog region of the Philippines, Zelda went back to the city in 1999. She joined the Journal Group of Publications in Manila as correspondent. At that time, press freedom icon Joe Burgos was publisher of the Journal Group. She later contributed to other publications. With modest income from writing, Zelda sent herself back to school. It was during her work-study years that Zelda won several awards for excellence in investigative and explanatory writings. “For pursuing the frontiers of investigative journalism in the Philippines, for enlarging the realm of fact-finding and truth-telling, probing are

Update this biography »
Complete biography of Zelda Soriano »