A brief survey of Iloko literature from the beginnings to its present development, with a bibliography of works pertaining to the Iloko people and their language, by Leopoldo Y. Yabes.

ILOKO LITERATURE

F. A. Respicio's Nasgued a namncama (Fervent Hope). These
novels exploit the love theme, and judged from their titles alone,
they do not amount to much in literary value.'2
The Short Story:-This literary type has not progressed
much since its birth toward the close of the nineteenth century.
From 1900 to 1925 it was almost completely neglected. Occasional stories appeared in the periodicals, but the readers evidently were not interested in them. Since 1925, however, with
the establishment of such periodicals as El Norte, Timekmi,
The Intelligencer, The Ilocos Times, and BcTnnawag, the short
story nas become popular among the people, and short story
writers have sprung up almost overnight. One Iloko weekly,
the Bannawag, runs as many as three, four or even five
short stories a week.
Because many of the short story writers are young people
without any respectable 'background, they cannot be expected to
do creditable work. Some of their stories are poor imitations
of the poorer class of American short stories such as are found
in the cheap fiction publications now flooding the cuntry, and
of the Tagalog stories published in the Liwayway and in the Mabuhay and Ticlba magazine sections. The writers sadly lack technique and an accurate knowledge of nature. Leon C. Pichay,
Narciso F. Gaupsan, Arturo R. Centeno, Alfonso A. Gregorio,
and Delfin S. Dallo might be able to produce some readable stuff
if they take more pains to improve their technique and to acquire
a better literary background by conscientiously reading good
literature.
12-The writer has not read these novels and so cannot make a definite
statement about each of them. The titles of these works were taken from
a news item in the Ilocos Times, v. 3, no. 19, 2nd week of March, 1935.