Azucena - M. de Gracia Concepcion

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Biographie:
Born in Santa Maria, Illocos Sur, Philippines in 1895, Marcelo de Gracia Concepci?n is the author of two books of poetry, Azucena (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1925) and The Bamboo Flute (Manila: Community Book, 1932), and a co-authored biography of President Manuel Quezon (The International Publishers, Philippines, 1935). He was a newspaper editor in the United States (Three Stars) and the Philippines (The Bystander, The Critic, The Vanguard, among others). In 1931, after 12 years in the US, Concepci?n left the country amidst anti-Filipino sentiments and after a hostile encounter with the LAPD. After returning to Manila with his German-American wife Elizabeth Concepci?n, they opened the Ivory Tower, a bookshop, caf?, and art gallery that was a gathering place for poets, writers, and artists. In 1933, Concepci?n was an invited participant in President Quezon's Independence Mission to Washington DC. Soon after his return to Manila, he defected from the Quezonites and joined the Sakdalista Party, an anti-imperialist group supportive of Filipino nationalism and agrarian socialism. In 1942, during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines, he was questioned about his writing by Japanese soldiers and then tortured and imprisoned at Fort Santiago, while his wife was held in the internment camp at University of Santo Tomas. The couple returned to the U.S. at the end of the war and separated. Starting in 1948, Concepci?n was under FBI surveillance because of his participation in leftist organizations in the Philippines and the US. In 1952, he played a minor role as a Tibetan lama in the Hollywood film?Storm Over Tibet. A few months later, in December 1952, he was found dead in his Los Angeles boarding-house room. He was 57 years old. At the time of his death, he was facing deportation by Immigration and Naturalization Service....

Sommaire:

Born in the Philippines in 1895, M. de Gracia Concepci?n published two books of poetry, Azucena and The Bamboo Flute, and a co-authored biography of Philippine President Manuel Quezon. He was also a journalist and a newspaper editor in the United States and the Philippines. When he died suddenly in Los Angeles in 1952, he was under FBI surveillance for suspected ties to Communist organizations and for his participation in liberation movements in the Philippines.