Gilda Cordero-Fernando

Gilda cordero fernando is a writerand publisher from the philippines she was born on june 4 1932 in manila has a B.A. from St. Theresa's College-Manila, and an M.A. from the Ateneo de Manila University. Cordero-Fernando has two collections of short stories: The Butcher, The Baker and The Candlestick Maker (1962) and A Wilderness of Sweets (1973). These books have been compiled and reissued as the Story Collection (1994).
Another book, Philippine Food and Life, was published in 1992 with Alfredo Roces. Cordero-Fernando also worked on Filipino Heritage, a 10-volume study on Philippine history and culture published by Lahing Pilipino in 1978. Afterwards, she founded GCF Books which published a dozen titles that deal with various aspects of Philippine culture and society.
Cordero-Fernando is also a visual artist, fashion designer, playwright, art curator and producer. In February 2000, she produced Luna: An Aswang Romance
 Gilda Cordero-Fernando is a multiawarded writer, publisher and cultural icon from the Philippines. She was born in Manila, has a B.A. from St. Theresa’s College-Manila, and an M.A. from the Ateneo de Manila University.

She started off as a writer and was awarded the Palanca Award for Literature several times. She has also written and illustrated children’s books.Her short stories are collected in The Butcher, The Baker and The Candlestick Maker (1962) and A Wilderness of Sweets (1973).

She has had a very rich life as a publisher. In 1978 she launched GCF Books, which published landmark books on Philippine cultural history: Streets of Manila (1977), Turn of the Century (1978), Philippine Ancestral Houses (1980), Being Filipino (1981), The History of the Burgis (1987), Folk Architecture (1989), & The Soul Book (1991).

Cordero-Fernando has also worn numerous other hats as a visual artist, fashion designer, playwright, art curator and producer. In February 2000, she produced Luna: An Aswang Romance. In 2001 she produced Pinoy Pop Culture, the book and the show, for Bench.

In 1994, she received a Cultural Center of the Philippines (Gawad CCP) for her lifetime achievements in literature and publishing.

 
joy is a woman who is recounting his experince of world war II during which she wan an idealistic young girl whose experience of war changed her favorable vision of the world as a wilderness of sweets into its opposite where romatic dreams and joys die and perish in the infancy even though the young joy dynamic charaterization occurs in the setting of the wolrd war II the deterioration of her romantic perspective is caused not by the direct effects of the war on her peson but by its effect on her loved ones which most permanently took form in the death of her brother leoand the patriotism that the war engendered in badel the young boy with whom she was inlove. The young joy does not get raped nor does she suffer from the cruelties war usually inflicts on her age. but the death of a family member and disappointment with a loved one to rob her of her childish romantic dreams.

Joy is a woman who is recounting her experience of World War II, during which she was an idealistic young girl whose experience of war changed her favorable vision of the world as 'a wilderness of sweets' into its opposite, where romantic dreams and joys 'die/ And perish in their infancy.' Even though the young Joy's dynamic characterization occurs in the setting of World War II, the deterioration of her romantic perspective is caused not by the direct effects of the war on her person, but by its effects on her loved ones, which most prominently took form in the death of her brother Leo and the patriotism that the war engendered in Badel, the young boy with whom she was in love. The young Joy does not get raped nor does she suffer from the cruelties war usually inflicts on girls her age, but the death of a family member and disappointment with a loved one are enough to rob her of her romantic, childish dreams.
Joy 'was twelve when the war broke out and sixteen when it ended.' The young Joy is an adolescent who is in the process of forming her dreams. She enjoys her childhood despite the war by tending a store with her friends and siblings, playing hide-and-seek, biking, and attending the neighborhood 'Everybody's Parties.' She laments her boyish looks with its lack of curves, reads 'weepy' love stories and fancies Badel to be her lover. Although love-struck, she is not blind to her flaws and is in fact acutely aware of her simplicity: 'I wept for all the grand impossible things Badel wished me to be, which I couldn't, couldn't... [He] could fashion nothing out of the clod of me, my thoughts were cinders, my soul was shallow, it had no brook'. Yet despite this awareness she is still completely infatuated with Badel, to whom all her romantic ideals were directed. She believes that they 'will get married. / ... live together / In a little candy house / Beside a lemonade lagoon'-a fantasy that displays the height of her idealism.
The young Joy's exposure to the lurid reality of war causes the disintegration of her sentimental view of life, which starts when the Japanese soldiers arrest her father for interrogation about her brother Paby. Her recognition of a whipping coil hanging out of the back pocket of one of the soldiers leads her to instinctually realize the gravity of her family's involvement in the guerilla movement. Badel's absence from a scheduled tryst also increases her disenchantment with life and she comes to the conclusion that she is 'unwadted and unlavd.' The world she has previously looked at with sentimentality has 'already turned into ashes' and when Badel came back she already knew that her 'life had ceased being a wilderness of sweets.'
This recognition is only firmly bolstered when the destructive side of war fatally affected Joy's family when, ironically, the war was just about to come to an end. Leo's death confirms the young Joy's belief that life is indeed no longer 'a wilderness of sweets,' but is a 'wilderness of slaughter.' As the Americans usher in victory, the young Joy loses her childish idealism, and the piece of chewing gum she picks up from the street serves as an offering to the death not just of her brother, but of her youthful idealism as well. The chewing gum is a symbol of the waning sweetness of life and of young Joy's transition from a sweet, sentimental girl to a hardened young adult whose romantic, sentimental dreams 'perish[ed] in their infancy.'
- See more at: http://www.litreact.com/reactions/a%20wilderness%20of%20sweets_cordero-fernando_pickles.html#sthash.xDbOSycN.dpuf

Joy 'was twelve when the war broke out and sixteen when it ended.' The young Joy is an adolescent who is in the process of forming her dreams. She enjoys her childhood despite the war by tending a store with her friends and siblings, playing hide-and-seek, biking, and attending the neighborhood 'Everybody's Parties.' She laments her boyish looks with its lack of curves, reads 'weepy' love stories and fancies Badel to be her lover. Although love-struck, she is not blind to her flaws and is in fact acutely aware of her simplicity: 'I wept for all the grand impossible things Badel wished me to be, which I couldn't, couldn't... [He] could fashion nothing out of the clod of me, my thoughts were cinders, my soul was shallow, it had no brook'. Yet despite this awareness she is still completely infatuated with Badel, to whom all her romantic ideals were directed. She believes that they 'will get married. / ... live together / In a little candy house / Beside a lemonade lagoon'-a fantasy that displays the height of her idealism. - See more at: http://www.litreact.com/reactions/a%20wilderness%20of%20sweets_cordero-fernando_pickles.html#sthash.xDbOSycN.dpuf

Joy is a woman who is recounting her experience of World War II, during which she was an idealistic young girl whose experience of war changed her favorable vision of the world as 'a wilderness of sweets' into its opposite, where romantic dreams and joys 'die/ And perish in their infancy.' Even though the young Joy's dynamic characterization occurs in the setting of World War II, the deterioration of her romantic perspective is caused not by the direct effects of the war on her person, but by its effects on her loved ones, which most prominently took form in the death of her brother Leo and the patriotism that the war engendered in Badel, the young boy with whom she was in love. The young Joy does not get raped nor does she suffer from the cruelties war usually inflicts on girls her age, but the death of a family member and disappointment with a loved one are enough to rob her of her romantic, childish dreams.
Joy 'was twelve when the war broke out and sixteen when it ended.' The young Joy is an adolescent who is in the process of forming her dreams. She enjoys her childhood despite the war by tending a store with her friends and siblings, playing hide-and-seek, biking, and attending the neighborhood 'Everybody's Parties.' She laments her boyish looks with its lack of curves, reads 'weepy' love stories and fancies Badel to be her lover. Although love-struck, she is not blind to her flaws and is in fact acutely aware of her simplicity: 'I wept for all the grand impossible things Badel wished me to be, which I couldn't, couldn't... [He] could fashion nothing out of the clod of me, my thoughts were cinders, my soul was shallow, it had no brook'. Yet despite this awareness she is still completely infatuated with Badel, to whom all her romantic ideals were directed. She believes that they 'will get married. / ... live together / In a little candy house / Beside a lemonade lagoon'-a fantasy that displays the height of her idealism.
The young Joy's exposure to the lurid reality of war causes the disintegration of her sentimental view of life, which starts when the Japanese soldiers arrest her father for interrogation about her brother Paby. Her recognition of a whipping coil hanging out of the back pocket of one of the soldiers leads her to instinctually realize the gravity of her family's involvement in the guerilla movement. Badel's absence from a scheduled tryst also increases her disenchantment with life and she comes to the conclusion that she is 'unwadted and unlavd.' The world she has previously looked at with sentimentality has 'already turned into ashes' and when Badel came back she already knew that her 'life had ceased being a wilderness of sweets.'
This recognition is only firmly bolstered when the destructive side of war fatally affected Joy's family when, ironically, the war was just about to come to an end. Leo's death confirms the young Joy's belief that life is indeed no longer 'a wilderness of sweets,' but is a 'wilderness of slaughter.' As the Americans usher in victory, the young Joy loses her childish idealism, and the piece of chewing gum she picks up from the street serves as an offering to the death not just of her brother, but of her youthful idealism as well. The chewing gum is a symbol of the waning sweetness of life and of young Joy's transition from a sweet, sentimental girl to a hardened young adult whose romantic, sentimental dreams 'perish[ed] in their infancy.'
- See more at: http://www.litreact.com/reactions/a%20wilderness%20of%20sweets_cordero-fernando_pickles.html#sthash.xDbOSycN.dpuf