He was born on 8 September 1915 in Romblon, Philippines. González, however, was raised in Calapan City, the capital of the Philippine province of Oriental Mindoro. González was a son of a school supervisor and a teacher. As a teenager, he helped his father by delivering meat door-to-door across provincial villages and municipalities. González was also a musician. He played the violin and even made four guitars by hand. He earned his first peso by playing the violin during a Chinese funeral in Romblon. González attended Mindoro High School (now Jose J. Leido Jr. Memorial National High School) from 1927 to 1930. González attended college at National University (Manila) but he was unable to finish his undergraduate degree. While in Manila, González wrote for the Philippine Graphic and later edited for the Evening News Magazine and Manila Chronicle. His first published essay appeared in the Philippine Graphic and his first poem in Poetry in 1934. González made his mark in the Philippine writing community as a member of the Board of Advisers of Likhaan: the University of the Philippines Creative Writing Center, founding editor of The Diliman Review and as the first president of the Philippine Writers' Association.González attended creative writing classes under Wallace Stegner and Katherine Anne Porter at Stanford University. In 1950, González returned to the Philippines and taught at the University of Santo Tomas, the Philippine Women's University and the University of the Philippines (U.P.). At U.P., González was only one of two faculty members accepted to teach in the university without holding a degree. On the basis of his literary publications and distinctions, González later taught at the University of California, Santa Barbara, California State University, Hayward, the University of Washington, the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of California, Berkeley.
On 14 April 1987, the University of the Philippines conferred on N.V.M. González the degree of Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa, "For his creative genius in shaping the Philippine short story and novel, and making a new clearing within the English idiom and tradition on which he established an authentic vocabulary, ...For his insightful criticism by which he advanced the literary tradition of the Filipino and enriched the vocation for all writers of the present generation...For his visions and auguries by which he gave the Filipino sense and sensibility a profound and unmistakable script read and reread throughout the international community of letters..."
N.V.M. González was proclaimed National Artist of the Philippines in 1997. He died on 28 November 1999 in Quezon City, Philippines at the age of 84. As a National Artist, Gonzalez was honored with a state funeral at the Libingan ng mga Bayani.
The works of Gonzalez have been published in Filipino, English, Chinese, German, Russian and Indonesian language.
Novels
The Winds of April (1941)
A Season of Grace (1956)
The Bamboo Dancers (1988)
Short fiction
A Grammar of Dreams and Other Stories. University of the Philippines Press, 1997
The Bread of Salt and Other Stories. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1993; University of the Philippines Press, 1993
Mindoro and Beyond: Twenty-one Stories. Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 1981; New Day, 1989
Selected Stories. Denver, Colorado: Alan Swallow, 1964
Look, Stranger, on this Island Now. Manila: Benipayo, 1963
Children of the Ash-Covered Loam and Other Stories. Manila: Benipayo, 1954; Bookmark Filipino Literary Classics, 1992
Seven Hills Away. Denver, Colorado: Alan Swallow, 1947
Essays
A Novel of Justice: Selected Essays 1968-1994. Manila: National Commission for Culture and the Arts and Anvil (popular edition), 1996
Work on the Mountain (Includes The Father and the Maid, Essays on Filipino Life and Letters and Kalutang: A Filipino in the World), University of the Philippines Press, 1996
