Palanca Awards Hall of Famer Gregorio C. Brillantes passes away

Filipino author Gregorio “Greg” Concepcion Brillantes has passed away on Friday morning, his nephew Joey Brillantes announced on Facebook. He was 92 years old.

“Over the course of his long writing life, Tito Greg published a number of short story collections, essays, edited works, and was influential both as a writer and an editor,” Joey said in his tribute.

Brillantes' major short story collections include “The Distance to Andromeda and Other Stories,” “The Apollo Centennial,” “Help,” “On a Clear Day in November, "Shortly Before the Millennium,” and “Stories for a Quarter Century.”

He is known for the stories “The Distance to Andromeda” and “Faith, Love, Time, and Dr. Lazaro.”

“The former has become emblematic, frequently taught; the latter is often cited as among his most powerful, combining human frailty with metaphysical concern,” Joey said.

Brillantes wrote essays and non-fiction. He was previously the editor for Sunburst, The Manila Review, Focus, Asia-Philippines Leader, and Philippines Free Press, among others, “shaping public taste and fostering new voices.”

“His style was often praised for its elegance, its psychological and interior depth, and for weaving in themes of alienation: especially the alienation of young people — adolescents or early-adults — who find themselves estranged from family, from society, or simply from themselves,” Joey said.

“He also explored, though more sparingly, the fantastic or speculative, at times using surreal or futuristic motifs to examine moral, existential, or spiritual questions.”

He has won several literary awards and was a Palanca Awards Hall of Famer. Bookstore Fully Booked also named the literary prize the Gregorio C. Brillantes Prize for Prose, awarded by Fully Booked after him, for being known as one of the “godfathers of fantastic literature in English.”

Brillantes earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Literature from Ateneo De Manila University in the 1940s.

Joey also described his uncle as “a bridge between post-war literary modernism and the evolving concerns of late 20th century Philippine society: martial law, social inequalities, spiritual struggle, family dislocation, urbanization.”

Joey added, “Unlike some writers who turned to long form (novel) or overt political tract, he remained largely within the short story form — and used that constraint to distill character, mood, moral paradox.”

Brillantes was also compared to writers like James Joyce and was dubbed a “Catholic writer.”

“[But] he was more than that label; his work transcended easy categorization. He could be fantastic, speculative, spiced with imaginary futures; he could also be deeply realist, attentive to the rhythms of village life or family illness or loss.”

According to Joey, Brillantes had a fall in 2015 and hip injury in 2017. Despite the physical challenges, he “continued to read, write, and respond to developments in Philippine society and literature. His passion for books, for conversation with younger writers, and for witnessing shifts in Philippine society remained vivid.”

Joey said Brillantes’ work is essential reading for anybody who wants to understand the evolution of Philippine literature in English in the post-war period and the late 20th century.

“His short stories are studied in schools; his essays remain valued for their clarity and moral seriousness; his influence as editor and mentor shaped generations. Because his work balanced the personal and the political, the spiritual and the speculative, he helped expand what Philippine English literature could do,” Joey said.

He further said his uncle’s works are “A model of how to use the short story form with precision, economy, and emotional weight,” and “A testament to the power of memory, place, and moral questioning in a society with colonial legacies, political turbulence, modernization, and urban migration.”

He added that Brillantes’ works are “An invitation to writers to be unafraid of mixing realism with the fantastic; to touch both earthly suffering and spiritual hope.”

Brillantes has been married to Lourdes “Baby” Brillantes since 1962. They have three daughters: Patricia Brillantes-Silvestre, Chi Brillantes, and Alicia Brillantes-Flores. — Nika Roque/LA, GMA Integrated News