Angela Manalang Gloria (b. 1907) is the matriarch of Filipino women poets writing in the English language. Who is the woman whose voice is heard in her poems? What was it like to have been among the first generation of Filipinos aspiring to write a national literature in a foreign tongue? What did it take to be a female writer competing in the male-dominated arena of Philippine letters? How did she balance the claims of art against those of family?
Employing the principles of the New Biography, which recognizes itself to be "fiction under oath," Edna Zapanta Manlapaz recreates the life and times of a remarkable woman. Angela Manalang Gloria: A Literary Biography presents readers with a Portrait of the Artist as a Filipina, the first of its kind in Philippine publishing.
Edna Zapanta Manlapaz is a prominent Filipina literary scholar, feminist critic, writer, and editor known for her contributions to the study of Philippine literature in English, with a special focus on Filipina women writers.
Manlapaz's research provides an extensive biographical and critical overview of Filipina women poets and fiction writers in English, spanning nearly a century of literary work. Her studies often examine the interplay of gender, class, language, and history within their writing. In recognition of her scholarly work and mentorship, a book of essays, poems, and short stories titled Prowess and Grace: A Festschrift for Edna Zapanta Manlapaz was published in her honor in 2010.