16 June 2014
MEMO TO: UNIVERSITY COMMUNITY
RE: DEMISE OF MR TONY ENRIQUEZ
It is with sadness that I am informing the community of the demise of one of ADZU’s accomplished alumnus, the great Zamboangueno fictionist and novelist, ANTONIO “Tony” Reyes Enriquez.
Tony Enriquez joined our Creator last June 14, 2014 at around 8:00PM. He passed away due to complications brought about by diabetes. He died in the presence of his loving family.
The novelist Enriquez is one of the most prolific Filipino novelists ever. He has written six novels, at least fifty short stories, and countless articles.
His writing career spans over half a century. He graduated elementary and high school, with honors, from Ateneo de Zamboanga, in 1949 and 1953 respectively. He was already writing professionally by the time he took up Creative Writing in Silliman University.
He authored five novels, including Surveyors of the Liguasan Marsh (1981), The Living and the Dead (1994), Subuanons (1999), The Activist (2010), and The Survivors (2012), and one nonfiction book, Twice-Told Subanon Tales (2013). Surveyors of the Liguasan Marsh won the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards in Literature Grand Prize in 1982. He has also won Palancas for his short stories, “The Icon” (1969), and “Spots on Their Wings” (1973). He was also a recipient of the SEA Write Award; UMPIL Award for Fiction; the University of the Philippines National Fellow Grant; and the Hawthornden Castle International Residence Fellowship.
He served as Writer-in-Residence at the Ateneo de Zamboanga University for two years (2007-2009). In 2013, AdZU gave him the Fr Eduardo Hontiveros SJ Recognition for Culture and Arts.
A memorial tribute will be held on June 18, Wednesday, 6:00PM at the JMR Building. The tribute is organized by the Ateneo Center for Culture and Arts, and the Languages Department.
FR KAREL S SAN JUAN SJ
University President
Memo: 14-15:06
