Filipina Broadcast journalist-turned-author Marga Ortigas has been named Country Award recipient at the Chommanard International Women’s Literary Award 2025, a recognition that highlights her transition from decades in international journalism to literary fiction grounded in memory, history, and human experience.

Ortigas received the award for her debut novel, The House on Calle Sombra, joining Singapore’s Jemimah Wei, who was also honored as a Country Award winner for The Original Daughter, a Good Morning America Book Club selection and New York Times Editors’ Pick.

The Chommanard International Women’s Literary Award, which builds on the Thai Chommanard Book Prize established in 2008, is dedicated to supporting and elevating women writers across Asia and beyond.

The 2025 edition received more than 66 submissions, with eight authors shortlisted. Both Country Award winners and shortlisted writers participated in a week-long literary program in Bangkok, which included events at the Bangkok International Book Fair organized by the Publishers and Booksellers Association of Thailand (PUBAT), along with visits to leading media organizations to promote cross-cultural exchange.

A journalist’s lens on fiction

Ortigas, known internationally for her three-decade career in broadcast journalism with CNN and Al Jazeera, said her novel emerged from a desire to move beyond the constraints of television reporting.

“In TV news, you only get two to three minutes maximum to report on anything,” she said during a round table discussion at the Chommanard Gala Night. “There was nothing really long-lasting that you could sit with, that you could digest, that you could eviscerate.”

After stepping away from full-time journalism, Ortigas initially intended to take a short break. Encouraged by her sister, she began writing what would eventually become The House on Calle Sombra. The process, she noted, took about five years from concept to publication.

A family story shaped by national history

The novel centers on a multi-generational Filipino family and the secrets tied to their ancestral home, Calle Sombra. The title reflects the country’s Spanish colonial history, with “sombra” meaning shadow.

Ortigas explained that the story draws from the visible contrasts in Philippine society, particularly the stark divide between wealth and poverty.

“In the Philippines, inequality is very visible,” she said.

“The wealth gap is very, very visible. You have very huge mansions, some even bigger than the houses you will see in Beverly Hills, and right around the corner you will have shantytowns.”

Ortigas explained that the abandoned mansions that dot some communities became symbolic in her work—spaces once associated with power and wealth, now overtaken by time and neglect. Through this backdrop, the novel explores how family structures intersect with broader systems of power, influence, and inequality in Philippine society.

While rooted in Filipino settings, Ortigas emphasized that her goal was to write a story that resonates globally.

“It’s very important that when I tell a story, someone halfway across the world can understand it,” she said. “All human beings are the same. We all want something, need something, love something.”

She described her approach as stripping away cultural differences to reveal shared human experiences—an extension of her journalistic training, where clarity and universality were essential.

Expanding Filipino voices in global literature

Ortigas’ recognition at the Chommanard Awards adds to the growing international presence of Filipino writers and storytellers. Her work bridges journalism and fiction, reflecting a tradition in Philippine literature that often engages with social realities, history, and identity.

By bringing together writers from across Asia and beyond, the Chommanard International Women’s Literary Award continues to position women’s narratives at the center of regional literary exchange, reinforcing the visibility of diverse voices on the global stage.

Other notable Philippine literature listed eligible for the competition includes:

• All the Lonely People by Kannina Claudine D. Pena

• Oha A Story Untold in One Eternal Second: A Novel by Krie R. Lopez

• At Home With Crazy by Katrina Martin

• Mga Prodigal by Luna Sicat Cleto

• What’s Scary? A Han’s and Mom’s Autism Book Series About Emotions by K.M. Jader

• State of Happiness by Clarissa V. Militante

• Silence by Che de Leon

• For the Win: The Not-So-Epic-Quest of a Non-Playable Character by Catherine Dellosa Lo

• The Game that Ended Us by Fe Esperanza Pediapco Trampe

• Flowers for Thursday by Mia P. Tijam

• Isabela: A Novel by Kaisa R. Aquino

• Love and Other Rituals: Selected Stories by Monica Macansantos

• The Mimosa Crown by Leila Rispens-Noel