José Rizal

José Rizal was a Filipino writer and ophthalmologist best known for two novels, Noli Me Tángere (1887) and El filibusterismo (1891), which together are taken as a national epic. Born in 1861, he was a key member of the Propaganda Movement, which pushed for political reform under Spanish rule. Rizal was executed by the Spanish colonial government in December 1896 and is popularly considered a national hero of the Philippines. The second novel follows Simoun, a jeweler with a hidden identity who plots an uprising.