EDGARDO B. MARANAN, Filipino writer, was born in Bauan, Batangas and grew up in Baguio City, Philippines. He is a poet, essayist, fictionist, playwright, writer of children’s stories, and translator. He was the Philippine fellow at the Iowa International Writing Program in 1985, National Fellow for Poetry of the UP Creative Writing Center in 1988, participant in the International Writers Residence at Lavigny, Switzerland in 2006, and delegate/panelist at the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival in Bali, Indonesia in 2007. At the age of 16, while a senior at St. Louis College high school in Baguio, he topped a national essay competition and won the right to represent the Philippines at the 1963 New York Herald Tribune World Youth Forum.
Bookmark Inc. of Manila has published some of his prize-winning children’s stories, together with their English versions written by the author himself: Ang Batang Nanaginip na Siya'y Nakalilipad and The Girl Who Dreamt She Could Fly; Ang Awit ni Pulaw and The Song of Pulaw; and Si Sabel, si Sabiong Lumba-lumba, at ang Hiwaga sa Laot and The Jinx, the Dolphin, and the Deep-Sea Mystery. His latest collection of mostly prize-winning poems, Passage: poems 1983-2006, also came out in 2007 under the Bookmark imprint. His other published works include Kudaman: Isang Epikong Palawan na Inawit ni Usuy (with Dr. Nicole Revel McDonald, published by Ateneo University Press), a translation into Filipino of a major Palawan epic, which won a National Book Award citation in 1992; Alab: mga tula and Agon: poems (University of the Philippines Press, 1982), and various short fiction, essays, children's stories, and translations appearing in journals, magazines, anthologies, as well as Philippine references and textbooks.
Back in his homeland after years of experiencing first hand the Filipino diaspora, he now makes a living as a freelance writer, and is an active member of the Baguio Writers Group. (Other literary bylines: Edgar B. Maranan, Ed Maranan, E.B. Maranan)