The plays he translated into Tagalog range from Sophocles and Shakespeare to Chekhov and Beckett. He is better known as a playwright and translator of plays, founding and artistically directing the Teatro Pilipino (1975-92). After acquiring a Masters degree in English from the Iowa Creative Writing Program in 1958, he taught at the Ateneo de Manila University. He switched to Tagalog, his mother tongue, (the national language, called Filipino) in the mid-60s.
Tinio was born in the packed district of Tondo, Manila in 1937, and began writing poetry in English.
