Miguel Syjuco

Miguel Syjuco at the Frankfurt Book Fair 2015

Miguel Syjuco (born November 17, 1976 in Manila , Philippines ) is a Filipino author.

Life

Syjuco is the son of Filipino politician Augusto Syjuco Jr. , who worked with the party of former Filipino President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo . He finished high school at Cebu International School in 1993 and graduated from Ateneo de Manila University in Manila with a degree in English literature in 2000. In between there were years of exile with his family in Canada . In 2004 he graduated with a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) from Columbia University in New York City . He received his doctorate as Dr. phil. at the University of Adelaide in Adelaide in South Australia in early 2011.

Syjuco has lived mainly in Montreal , Québec , Canada since 2004 .

His first novel, Ilustrado, from 2008, was subsequently awarded a prize.

2008: Palanca Award , Philippines: Grand Prize for a work in English, Ilustrado
2008: Man Asian Literary Prize also for Ilustrado
2010: Quebec Writers' Foundation Awards , Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction for Ilustrado
2010: nominated for the Amazon.ca First Novel Award
2010: New York Times Book Review and Globe & Mail Top 100 for Ilustrado
2011: nominated for the Premio Gregor von Rezzori (Florence) and the Swiss Jan Michalski Prize for Literature ; each on the shortlist for his first novel
2011: Prix Courrier international for the best book translated into French

Illustrado . Farrar, Straus & Giroux, New York City, USA 2010, ISBN 978-0-374174781 .
- The enlightened ones , translated by Hannes Riffel. Klett-Kotta Verlag, Stuttgart 2011, ISBN 978-3-608-93891-3 .