José Rizal

José Rizal , 1861-96, Philippine nationalist, author, poet, and physician, b. Calamba, Laguna prov. He studied at a Jesuit school in Manila, at the Univ. of Madrid (M.D., 1884; Ph.D., 1885), and in Paris, Berlin, Heidelberg, and Leipzig. In Berlin he published his first novel, Noli me tangere (1886, tr. The Lost Eden, 1961), a diatribe against Spanish administration and the religious orders in the Philippines. Because of this attack he was compelled by Spanish officials to leave the islands soon after his return home in 1887. He lived successively in China, Japan, the United States, England, and France, before establishing himself in Hong Kong to practice medicine. In 1890 he published an annotated edition of Antonio Morgas's Sucesos de las islas Filipinas, and in 1891 he published his second novel, El filibusterismo (tr. The Subversive, 1962), a sequel to his first. Returning to Manila in 1892, he was arrested as a revolutionary agitator and banished to Dapitan on Mindanao. While on his way to Cuba in 1896, he was arrested and returned to Manila. There he was given a farcical trial and executed as an instigator of insurrection and founder of secret revolutionary societies. His martyrdom incited a full-scale rebellion against Spanish rule. He also wrote articles; Mariang Makiling (1890), a Philippine folk tale; and considerable poetry.

Bibliography: See his letters, tr. by J. P. Apostol (1959); his reminiscences and travels, ed. by E. Alzona (Vol. I, 1961); biographies by C. Quirino (1958), L. M. Guerrero (1963), and A. Coates (1968).