Author Biography

Doreen Gamboa Fernandez (1934-2002) was a prodigious writer and editor, literary scholar, cultural historian, and much-beloved teacher of more than thirty years. Her research has been on cultural, literary, theater, and culinary history on which she has written for scholarly and popular publications and had regularly been invited to speak at conferences and symposiums. Her weekly column in The Philippine Daily Inquirer, In Good Taste, ran for sixteen years and had a wide and devoted following.

Among her books are: The Iloilo Zarzuela: 1903-1930; In Performance; Face to Face: The Craft of Interviewing; Palabas: Essays on Philippine Theater History; Fruits of the Philippines; Palayok: Philippine Food Through Time, On Site, In the Pot. With Edilberto N. Alegre, she co-authored: The Writer and His Milieu and Writers and Their Milieu; the Lasa series on dining in Manila and the provinces; Sarap: Essays on Philippine Food and Culture; and Kinilaw: A Philippine Cuisine of Freshness.

In 1997 she received the Achievement Award from the National Research Council; and in 1999 was among the honorees of the Cultural Center of the Philippines Centennial Honors for the Arts, recognizing 100 Filipinos who helped shape the arts in the Philippines in the last century (1898-1998).

She was married to interior designer Wili P. Fernandez.