Sugilanong Sugboanon

On the eve of the Second World War, the short story and novel in Cebuano were already established literary forms. The end of the war saw the return of newspapers and magazines and the publishing of Cebuano fiction with even greater vigour. While Cebuano writing suffered marginalisation in the scheme of a national literature and culture in the post-war years, there has been a recent upsurge not only in scholarship on regional literary traditions, but also in the number of young Cebuanos writing in Cebuano instead of English. In the work of some practitioners, many of them represented in this book, Cebuano fiction has acquired a more mellow, more confident voice. The output of English-Cebuano fictionists, also here showcased, has added a healthy, cross-fertilising influence on contemporary Cebuano writing. With the interest in the recovery of local traditions and awareness of the need for more dynamic cross-regional enrichments, Cebuano literature must seize its future, and take the path that opens out into a territory of as yet unrealised possibilities.