Rizal in Saga: A Life for Student Fans, long before it was commissioned by the Philippine Centennial Commission, was already written, in parts and in other forms, by its author, in his heart and mind. Having written biographies of other contemporary Filipinos under his continuing Project, "Philippines 1900" Nick Joaquin in Rizal in Saga, deconstructs from Rizal's own memoirs, his written works as well as from other biographies, yet his Rizal biography seems more immediate with a closer-in-view into the life of the national hero.