Der Aufstieg von “Healing Fiction”

RYAN C. CUATRONA, LPT is a Bikolnon artist, cultural worker, and educator from Buhi, Camarines Sur. He earned his Bachelor of Science in Digital Illustration and Animation from Ateneo de Naga University (2017) and is currently completing his Master’s in Computer Graphics and Animation. He is a full-time Senior High School teacher at the same university under the Arts and Design Track – 2D Animation and Visual Effects Strand.

As a filmmaker, he served as production designer for the Bikol film Hinulid (2016), earning a Best Production Design nomination at the 40th Gawad Urian and winning Best Visual Design at the 24th Filipino International Cine Festival in San Francisco. His 2D-3D animated short film Kalumbata (2021) received Special Mention at the 5th Sine Kabataan Short Film Competition by the Film Development Council of the Philippines.

He is a published writer and contributing translator of literary works into Bwînën, the language of Buhi. His translation work appears in Pag-Ibig: Mga Aporismo ng Pagnanasa’t Pagsinta (Tolentino, 2014), Pagkamuot: Mga Binirikol na Usipon Gikan sa Europa (Olsa, Cordero, Misolas, 2028), and Hindi Pasisiil ang Pagsibol at Iba Pang Tula mula Hungaria (Cordero, Vilasis, 2023). He self-published a translation of selected Aesop’s Fable—Kaaayüpan: Mga Piling Pabula ni Esopo (2016) and is currently preparing a Bwînën translation of The Little Prince. A book designer for several universities and independent press, many of the titles he has worked on have been recognized as finalists or winners of the National Book Awards.

He is the founder and creative director of Project Susog Inc., a youth-led heritage organization recognized as a semi-finalist in the 2021 Ten Accomplished Youth Organizations. He is a fellow of the 7th Saringsing Writers Workshop and the 1st Saling-Panitik Bienvenido Lumbera Translation Seminar-Workshop.

KRISTIAN SENDON CORDERO is a poet, fictionist, essayist, translator, and an independent filmmaker. He has written five poetry collections in Filipino, Bikol and Rinconada, the latest two both received the National Book Awards for Poetry in Filipino and Bikol in 2014. As a translator, he translated selected poetry of Rainier Maria Rilke, Minatubod Ako Sa Diklom (I Have Faith in the Night), Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, An Pakagimata ni Gregor Samsa in Bikol and An Mapara Sa Kinaban/Ang Maglaho Sa Mundo, selected poetry of Jorge Luis Borges in Bikol and Filipino under the translation grant from Programa Sur of Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores Y Culto of the Republic of Argentina. He was named one of the Ten Outstanding Young Men of the Philippines for Arts and Literature in 2022. He is the co-head of the Translation Committee for the Philippine Guest of Honor in the 2025 Frankfurt Buchmesse and serves as the director of the Ateneo de Naga University Press.