Veteran journalist Inday Espina-Varona and renowned critic Rolando Tolentino will highlight this year’s Paz Latorena Memorial Lectures on April 17, 2 p.m., at the Tanghalang Teresita Quirino, Benavides Bldg., University of Santo Tomas.

The lecture is held in honor of fictionist-pedagogue Paz Latorena (1908-1953), one of the original matriarchs of Philippine literature in English (along with Paz Marquez Benitez and Loreto Paras Sulit). She was the second literary editor of the UST Varsitarian and became a well-known professor of English and literature at the UST Faculty of Philosophy and Letters where she mentored the second generation of writers, poets and journalists in English, such as National Artist for Literature F. Sionil José, Inquirer founder Eugenia Duran Apostol, Nita Umali Berthelsen, Genoveva Edroza Matute, Zeneida Amador, Ophelia Alcantara Dimalanta and Alice Colet-Villadolid.

Varona is one of the most influential social media advocates in the country today and once headed the citizen journalism arm of ABS-CBN. Tolentino is dean of the University of the Philippines College of Mass Communications and director of the UP Institute of Creative Writing.

Themed “Saysay ng Panitikan sa Panahon ng Fake News at Tokhang,” the lectures will tackle pressing issues of rampant misinformation and extra-judicial killings as by-product of the drug war from the viewpoint of creative writing and journalism.

The yearly scholastic event coincides with the celebration of the National Literature Month. It aims to provide an avenue for students, faculty members and professionals to discourse on the present state of Philippine literature and its trajectory toward the nearer future.

The 2018 Paz Latorena Memorial Lectures will be open to the public. Contact the UST Faculty of Arts and Letters at 7314003, or the UST Department of Literature at 4061611 loc. 8428.