“Writing is homecoming,” Merlinda Bobis said. “Ang pagsurat pag-uli, ang pagsurat paghangos, ang pagsurat pagsalba.”

She read and sang, from her poems in Bikol, Filipino and English to the epic poem Kantada ng Babaing Mandirigma Daragang Magayon—to Banana Heart Summer and her various fiction books all the way to her latest novel, In the Name of the Trees, at a much awaited performance in Legazpi City.

She told the stories behind their creation. How does literature ‘happen’? How does it become performance? How is it to journey through 13 books and 10 performance works (1990-2025) across cultures? How is it to travel from Bikol to Australia and back?

The special event was held on August 20, 2026, at the Bicol University Amphitheater. Sponsored by the Albay Arts Foundation and Bicol University, it celebrates the underpinning Bikol orality in the works of a multiawarded author as she affirms how stories begin in (and return to) the body.

Dr. Merlinda Bobis is a multi-awarded novelist, poet, and dramatist. She is the author of 5 novels, 6 poetry books, 2 collections of short stories, ten performance works, and various scholarly essays. She performed her epic poem Kantada ng Babaing Mandirigma Daragang Magayon as a one-woman play at the Cultural Center of the Philippines and at various theatres in Australia and France.

Her fifth novel In the Name of the Trees, which is set in Bikol and Canberra, has just been shortlisted (meaning a Finalist) for the highly prestigious Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Fiction. Last month, it won the ACT (Australian Capital Territory) Literary Award for Fiction. 

Her second book of short stories, The Kindness of Birds, received the Canberra Critics’ Circle Award and was Highly Commended for the ACT Book of the Year. It was also a Finalist for the Steele Rudd Award and the Christina Stead Prize, the latter of which she won for her novel Locust Girl, A Lovesong. Her first novel Banana Heart Summer received the Gintong Aklat Award and was a Finalist for the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal.

Her other awards include the Philippine National Book Award, which she won twice for her novels, three Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for her poetry in English and Filipino, the Gawad Pambansang Alagad ni Balagtas, the Manila Critics’ Circle Award and the Steele Rudd Award for the Best Published Collection of Australian Short Stories for White Turtle, her first collection of short stories published as Dream Stories for the Philippine Edition. 

She also won the Prix Italia and the Australian Writers’ Guild Award for her radio play Rita’s Lullaby. In 2025 she was named as one of the top ten female novelists shaping the literary scene in Southeast Asia.

Dr. Bobis taught English and Literature for 10 years at Philippine universities and Creative Writing for 21 years at University of Wollongong in Australia. She is currently Honorary Senior Lecturer at the School of Culture, History and Language of the College of Asia and the Pacific at The Australian National University. A native of Albay and a Bikolana at heart, she now lives and writes in Canberra, Australia.

The header montage features book covers Merlinda Bobis’ popular novels, (left to right) The Kindness of Birds, In the Name of the Trees, and Banana Heart Summer. This article is based on the press statement of Albay Arts Foundation and Bicol University.