Penman No. 479: Postscript to Frankfurt

Posted on November 2, 2025 by penmanila

Penman for Sunday, November 2, 2025

IT WILLl be remembered as one of the largest, most complex, possibly most impactful—and yes, also most expensive and controversial—showcases of Filipino cultural and intellectual talent overseas, and above and beside all else, that fact alone will ensure that few things will remain the same for Philippine literature after Frankfurt 2025: it will be remembered.

Last month—officially from October 14 to 19, but with many other related engagements before and after—the Philippines attended the 77^th Frankfurter Buchmesse or FBM, better known as the Frankfurt Book Fair, in a stellar role as its Guest of Honor or GOH. Accorded yearly to a country with the talent, the energy, and the resources to rise to the challenge, GOH status involves setting up a national stand showcasing the best of that country’s recent publications, filling up a huge national pavilion with exhibits covering not only that country’s literature but also its music, visual art, film, food, and other cultural highlights, presenting a full program of literary discussions, book launches, off-site exhibits, and lectures, and, of course, bringing over a delegation of the country’s best writers and artists.

It’s as much a job as it is an honor. Past honorees have predictably come mainly from the West, such as France (2017), Norway (2019), Spain (2022), and Italy (2024); only once before was Asia represented, by Indonesia in 2016. Little known to many then, Sen. Loren Legarda—the chief advocate for the arts and culture in the government—had already broached the idea of pushing for the Philippines as GOH in 2015. It took ten years, with a pandemic and two changes of government intervening, but Legarda finally secured the funds—coursed through the National Commission for Culture and the Arts and the National Book Development Board—for us to serve as GOH this year, announced a year earlier.

The Filipino delegates, over a hundred writers and creatives and as many publishers and journalists, took part in a program of about 150 events—talks, panel discussions, demonstrations, book launches, and performances—and ranged from Nobel Peace Prize winner and journalist Maria Ressa and National Artists Virgilio Almario, Ramon Santos, and Kidlat Tahimik to feminist humorist Bebang Siy, graphic novelist Jay Ignacio, poet Mookie Katigbak Lacuesta, and fellow STAR columnist AA Patawaran.

It was my third FBM, having gone for the first time in 2016 and then again last year, when the German translations of my novels Killing Time in a Warm Place and Soledad’s Sister were launched. This year, it was the Spanish translation of Soledad that was set to be launched at Frankfurt’s Instituto Cervantes.

Those two previous exposures allowed me to appreciate our GOH role for what it was—a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to put our best foot forward on the global stage. What began in the 1980s as a tiny booth with a few dozen books—which it still was when I first visited nine years ago—had become a full-on promotional campaign, not for the government (which did not object to outspoken critics of authoritarianism being on the delegation) and not even just for Philippine books and writers but for the Filipino people themselves.

Six out of my eight events took place outside the FBM—two of them involving side-trips to Bad Berleburg in Germany and Zofingen in Switzerland—to bring us closer to local communities interested in what Filipinos were writing and thinking. Indeed my most memorable interactions were those with local Pinoys and with ordinary Germans and Swiss who asked us about everything from the current state of affairs (the resurgence of the Right in both the Philippines and Europe, Marcos and Duterte, the threat from China, the corruption scandal) to Filipino food and culture, the diaspora, the aswang, and inevitably, Jose Rizal, who completed the Noli in Germany and in whose tall and broad shadow we all worked.

Everywhere we went, in Frankfurt and beyond, the local Pinoy community embraced us, eager for news from home and proud to be represented, to hear their stories told in words they themselves could not articulate. “I’ve been living a hard life working here as a nurse in Mannheim,” Elmer Castigador Grampon told me, “and it brings tears to my eyes to see our people here, and to be seen differently.”

A German lady accosted me on the street outside the exhibition hall and asked if I was the Filipino she had seen on TV explaining the Philippines, and we had our picture taken. A German author in his seventies, Dr. Rainer Werning, recounted how he had been in Manila during the First Quarter Storm and the Diliman Commune, had co-authored two books with Joma Sison since the late 1980s, and had described the Ahos purge in Mindanao and similar ops in other parts of the islands as the most tragic and saddest chapter in the history of the Philippine Left . A sweet and tiny Filipina-Swiss lady, Theresita Reyes Gauckler, brought trays of ube bread she had baked to our reception in Zofingen (the trays were wiped out). Multiply these connections by the hundreds of other Filipinos who participated in the FBM, and you have an idea of the positive energy generated by our visit.

From our indefatigable ambassador in Berlin, Susie Natividad, I learned about how Filipino migrant workers have to learn and pass a test in German to find jobs in Germany, a task even harder in Switzerland, where Swiss German is required. Despite these challenges, our compatriots have done us proud, as the maiden issue of Filipino Voices (The Ultimate Guide to Filipino Life in Switzerland) bears out.

The FBM was as much a learning as it was a teaching experience for us, for which we all feel deeply grateful. By the time our group took our final bows on the stage in Zofingen—a small Swiss city that hosts writers from the GOH after the FBM as part of its own Literaturtage festival—I felt teary-eyed as well, amazed by how a few words exchanged across a room could spark the laughter of recognition that instantly defined our common humanity.

I am under no illusion that GOH participation will dramatically expand our global literary footprint overnight, but it has created many new opportunities and openings for our younger writers to pursue in the years to come. It is a beginning and a means, not an end. The greater immediate impact will be to spur domestic literary production and publishing, to have a keener sense of readership, and to encourage the development of new forms of writing.

Sadly, a move to boycott the FBM by Filipino writers protesting what they saw to be Germany’s complicity with Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza has also impacted our literary community. (For the record, there were Palestinian writers—and even an Iranian. delegation—at the FBM, with whom Filipino writers interacted in a forum. There was also a Palestinian book fair across the fairgrounds.)

I have long taken it as my mission to promote an awareness of our work overseas and had opposed the boycott from the very beginning for reasons I have already given many times elsewhere. Many hurtful words have been spoken and many friendships frayed or broken, to which I will add no more, except to quote the Palestinian-Ukrainian refugee Zoya Miari, who visited the Philippine pavilion and sent our delegates this message afterward:

“I’m on my way from Frankfurt back to Zurich, and I’m filled with so much love that I can’t stop thinking about the love I felt in the Philippine Pavilion. I came back today to the Pavilion to say goodbye, not to a specific person, but to the whole community. This space became a safe space for me, one where I deeply felt a sense of belonging.

“I’m writing these words to thank you and your people for creating a space where

I, where we, felt heard and seen. That in itself is such a powerful impact. I know some people decided to stay in the Philippines to show support for the Palestinians, and I want to say that I hear and see them, and I thank them. And to those who decided to come, to resist by existing, by speaking up, by showing up, by connecting the dots, by being present and by sharing stories, I also hear you, see you, and deeply thank you.

“We all share the same intention: to stand for justice, to fight against injustice, and we’re all doing it in the best way we know how. I truly believe that the first step to changing the world is to create safe spaces where people are deeply heard and seen. When stories are heard and seen, we begin to share our vulnerabilities and showing that side of ourselves is an act of love. Through this collectiveness, this solidarity, we fight for collective liberation.”

Qwertyman No. 168: A Vote at the Vatican

Posted on October 22, 2025 by penmanila

Qwertyman for Monday, October 20, 2025

iN GERMANY right now attending the 77^th Frankfurter Buchmesse or Frankfurt Book Fair as a member of the Philippine delegation, I’ve been fortunate to engage in many interesting discussions with German journalists and fellow writers from all over. But one of the most important and frankly troubling conversations was one I had with a Filipino writer now based in Italy, someone with a deep knowledge and understanding of the political situation in his home country and particularly in Mindanao.

“There are two Philippine embassies in what most of us simply call Italy,” my source explained to me. “One is in Rome, and the other, called the Philippine embassy to the Holy See, is in Vatican City, which is a sovereign city-state. Most overseas Filipinos in Italy—over 100,000 of them, mostly domestic helpers and nurses—cast their votes for Philippine elections in our embassy in Rome. Those in the Vatican—priests, nuns, and other religious workers—vote there.”

“And so?”

“This is where it gets interesting. During the most recent midterm elections, where OFWs could vote for senator, there were 23 votes cast at the Vatican for Apollo Quiboloy.”

I had to let that sink in for a moment. “Wait a minute—you’re telling me that two dozen Catholic priests, nuns, and whoever at the Vatican voted for a disgraced and now imprisoned cult leader who calls himself the Appointed Son of God and New Owner of the Universe? Are you sure?”

“I couldn’t believe it myself,” he answered, “so I double-checked that with our embassy there, and they confirmed that it was true: Pastor Quiboloy got 23 votes in the Vatican. Now, I can try to understand if some Filipino Catholics would still vote for Duterte despite everything, but Quiboloy?” He shuddered. “That shows how far we have to go, and how we can’t assume that the Dutertes are spent as a political force.”

I had to laugh at his story, but it was laughter of the nervous kind, born out of irony than mirth. “Here we are in Frankfurt,” I said, “attending the world’s largest and oldest fair devoted to books and literature, to novels and fiction of the most imaginative variety, with many of us having a hard time selling our stories, and then comes along this Quiboloy tale that seems to show that people will believe the craziest things. This is fiction, popular fiction!”

You had to see the humor in the situation—I can easily imagine a cartoon depicting a soutaned priest receiving absolution from Quiboloy garbed in, well, shiny robes befitting a New Owner of the Universe—but its implications were anything but comic. It meant that presumably sane deeply spiritual men and women, living and working at the very heart of the Catholic faith that defined their lives, had found common cause with an accused sex trafficker and abuser of minors. Sure, the accusations remain just that until they’re proven, and sure, these Vatican voters were merely exercising their democratic rights.

But really? Quiboloy? Might the pastor’s claim of bearing “the exact DNA of the Almighty Father and the New Jerusalem” and of being “the bodily manifestation of the unseen God” have resonated with them? Could they have been enticed by his devotion to “enthroning prosperity and abundance, and (being) a trustworthy steward of the Father’s financial business on earth”?

Whatever the reason, it’s clear that the Pinoy’s political imagination is capacious enough to combine disparate perspectives and philosophies into one noggin. Pope Leo? Sure, obey. Senator Quiboloy? Sure, support.

All throughout my talks here in Frankfurt, I’ve been asked who and what the modern Filipino is, and my best response has been to assert that the Filipino (and the Filipino nation) continues to be a work-in-progress, a compound of various historical and cultural influences contending for primacy. An example I conveniently cite is that of a New People’s Army cadre, presumably Marxist, who remains a practicing Christian and prays to Jesus, but who also begs the indulgence of resident spirits when he passes an anthill in the forest. We’re seguristas, investing in alternative fortunes.

That’s not to say we don’t have people who think only one way and not the other—thankfully many if not most of us still stand on some kind of principle—but the exceptions make more interesting subjects of study. In this regard, Quiboloy’s Vatican voters may have been DDS who saw no contradiction between their Catholic faith and Dutertismo (something we’ve seen and continue to see among the religious, especially in Mindanao).

I suddenly recalled an article published on Rappler in July 2020 by Fr. Amado Picardal, CSSR, who wondered aloud why so many of his colleagues, including a university president, openly rallied behind a man who cursed God and the Pope. He wrote: “In the religious community where I was living, most supported his candidacy, and I felt like a lonely voice warning them about the dire consequences…. One confrere proudly told me to my face that he was voting for Duterte, knowing my stance. A seminarian wore a Du30 bracelet. There were three confreres who posted their photos on Facebook doing a fist bump. A contemplative nun campaigned on Facebook for him and even made her pet dog wear a Du30 collar.” Fr. Amado offered some explanations: regionalism, the Left’s deluded belief in Duterte’s progressive pretensions, his strongman appeal.

Given these, the Vatican result makes more sense, without offering any comfort to those of us who might have been under the illusion that proximity to the Vicar of Christ and Successor to the Prince of the Apostles induced enlightenment. Being the New Owner of the Universe apparently exerts more power, even from prison, and we should be afraid, be very afraid.

(Image from aleteia.org)

Penman No. 478: Best Foot Forward in Frankfurt

Posted on October 5, 2025 by penmanila

Penman for Sunday, October 5, 2025

ON MONDAY next week, several hundred Filipino writers, publishers, artists, journalists and other workers in the book trade will be flying off to Germany for the Frankfurter Buchmesse (FBM), better known as the Frankfurt Book Fair, running this year until October 19.

Led mainly by the National Book Development Board (NBDB) and the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA), it will probably be the largest cultural mission ever sent out by the country to an international event—the equivalent of an Olympic delegation—and for good reason. This year, the Philippines is the FBM’s Guest of Honor (GOH), an annual distinction designed to draw attention to that particular country’s literature and culture, chiefly through its books.

As GOH, the Philippines will have its own pavilion of curated exhibits highlighting our literary history and production, as well as the diversity of our works from historical novels and crime fiction to children’s stories and comic books.

Going back over 500 years, the Frankfurt book fair is the world’s largest gathering of publishers, authors, and booksellers, drawing thousands of attendees from all over the world to what is essentially a marketplace for publishing and translation rights. For countries like the Philippines, far away from the global publishing centers in New York and London, it is a matchless opportunity to showcase the best of one’s work.

Looming largely over our GOH presence will be the work and legacy of Jose Rizal, whose deep personal ties to Germany—where he studied ophthalmology and completed Noli Me Tangere—continue to inform our relationship with that country. Indeed, our GOH slogan—“The imagination peoples the air”—is drawn from Rizal’s Fili, turning Sisa’s frantic search for her missing sons into a metaphor for the power of words to create moving realities.

There are hundreds of events on the Philippines’ official FBM schedule, both onsite and off-site. They range from panel discussions on “Our National Literature: Filipino Spirit and Imagination” with Merlie Alunan and Kristian Cordero, “Women’s Fiction from the Global South” with Cecilia Manguerra Brainard, Jessica Zafra, and Ayu Utami, and “Dismantling Imperial Narratives” with Filomeno Aguilar Jr., Lisandro Claudio, and Patricia May Jurilla to performances by National Artist for Music Ramon Santos and the Philippine Madrigal Singers, a demonstration of Baybayin by Howie Severino, and a book launch of the German editions of the Noli and Fili with historian Ambeth Ocampo. (For the full program, see https://philippinesfrankfurt2025.com/events/)

I have eight events on my personal calendar, ranging from the launch of the Spanish edition of my novel Soledad’s Sister to readings at the Union International Club and Bad Bergleburg, so it’s going to be a hectic time for this septuagenarian. This will be my third and likely my last sortie into the FBM, and I know how punishing those long walks down the hangar-sized halls can get.

Practically all aspects of Philippine art and culture will be on display in Frankfurt, going well beyond books and literature into theater, film, music, dance, food, and fashion. In short, we will be putting our best foot forward on this global stage, although there will be no papering-over of our political and social fractures and crises. (Journalists Maria Ressa and Patricia Evangelista will be there to make sure of that.)

As with any large-scale national enterprise, our GOH effort has not been without controversy. A campaign by cultural activists to boycott the FBM—premised on Germany’s and the book fair’s perceived support for Israel in its genocidal war on Gaza—took off earlier this year and gained some traction, leading to the withdrawal of some authors from the delegation. There was spirited and largely respectful debate over this issue, but it was clear to both sides from the outset that a complete disengagement from the FBM—for which we had planned for many years running—was not going to happen. (I argued, like many others, for our critical participation, minding Gaza as one of the foremost issues facing humanity today. Not incidentally, on the Philippine program is a panel on “Writing Through the Wounds: Filipino and Palestinian Literatures in Relational Solidarity” with Nikki Carsi Cruz, Dorian Merina, Tarik Hamdan, Atef Abu Saif, and Genevieve Asenjo, among other initiatives in support of Palestinian freedom.)

Another criticism raised was the cost of our GOH participation—an effort bannered and sustained by Sen. Loren Legarda, the chief and most consistent supporter of the arts and culture in the Senate. Why not just pour all that money, some have said, into publishing and printing more books for Filipinos? There’s no argument that Philippine education needs more support (the trillion-peso infrastructure scam tells us the money was always there) but the targeted exposure that the GOH opportunity provides comes once in a lifetime, and Sen. Legarda wasn’t about to let it pass.

As she noted in recent remarks, “When I first envisioned the Philippines as the Guest of Honor at the Frankfurter Buchmesse, some felt that it was far too ambitious, that we were too diverse and too complex for the world’s largest book fair to embrace. But I believed then, as I believe now, that our diversity is our greatest advantage, a gift and never a hurdle.

“The Philippines is more than an archipelago of 7,641 islands. It is a vast constellation of ideas and innovation, of ingenuity and distinct cultures and traditions joined together by the tides of hope and resilience. The 135 languages identified and described by the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino turn into the voices and stories of Filipinos resonating around the world, reaching across cultures, transcending borders, challenging assumptions, and expanding the boundaries of human empathy.”

Let those voices and stories fill the air in Frankfurt, and spread around the planet.

Qwertyman No. 147: Literature Has Many Flags

Posted on May 26, 2025 by penmanila

Qwertyman for Monday, May 26, 2025

IT WILL be a tempest in a teapot to most Filipinos still caught up in the aftermath of the midterm elections, a topic of interest to a limited few, but I’m bringing it up this week because it’s important enough for larger reasons.

The Philippines will be Guest of Honor (GOH) at this October’s Frankfurt Buchmesse (FBM), the world’s oldest and largest book fair. Being GOH means that the Philippines—its literature, culture, history, and politics—will be foregrounded in Frankfurt, through the dozens of writers, thousands of books, and the many exhibits and presentations that will be brought over to the FBM, through the combined efforts of the National Book Development Board (NBDB) and the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA), among other organizations.

Much of the groundwork for this initiative, which began well before the pandemic, was laid by Sen. Loren Legarda, the principal advocate of arts and culture in the Senate. GOH status is an honor given every year to a different country, but it doesn’t come free; the project involves hundreds of millions of pesos, which its proponents see as a worthwhile investment in raising the global profile of the Philippines through its culture and expanding the international market for Philippine books and authors. The past two years have seen intensive efforts made by the NBDB and the Philippine GOH Committee to prepare the program, select the delegates, and arrange the logistics for our historic participation in October at the FBM.

Comes now a move, led by some prominent Filipino writers and activists, to boycott the FBM for various reasons, including what some see as the government’s misplaced priorities in funding our GOH participation, but primarily in protest of the FBM’s alleged support for Israel in its war in Gaza, and also of Germany’s complicity as an Israeli ally in that conflict. At the moment, it hasn’t gained much traction, but I wouldn’t be surprised if, in the intervening months between now and October, it gathers some steam—likely not enough to stop us from going, but enough to cause some dismay and dissension within our ranks.

I’m not in favor of this boycott, for reasons I’ll shortly explain, but first, full disclosure: I have been formally invited to attend the FBM as a delegate, and have accepted the invitation; I will be involved in several events—a launch of the new Spanish translation of my second novel Soledad’s Sister, several book readings, and possibly some panel discussions. All my expenses will be answered for. This will be my third (and at my age, likely my last) participation at the Frankfurt book fair, as an author whose books have been translated into Italian, French, German, and Spanish editions. In other words, I have a vested interest in going to Frankfurt. (To those who have never been to the FBM, it is no junket; expect long hours manning the booths, talking to people, selling book rights, and walking kilometers of hallways on the enormous fairgrounds. Frankfurt is not a particularly scenic city, although a side trip to nearby Heidelberg and its Rizal connections will be a welcome break.)

Some readers might find the connection between the FBM and Gaza tenuous and the call for a boycott bewildering, but it does have some basis worth serious consideration. The relationship between Germany and Israel, or the Germans and Jews, is long and complex (highlighted by the Holocaust before Israel even came to be, and the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre, among others), but the immediate trigger for the outcry was the FBM’s controversial cancelation of an awards ceremony for the celebrated Palestinian writer Adana Shibli in the immediate wake of Hamas’ attack on October 7, 2023.

The outrage is justifiable and widely shared. In this column and other media, I myself have written against Israel’s assault on the Palestinian people (see “The Country I Wanted to Love,” from April 19, 2024), as have many other commentators. Indeed, I know of very few Filipino writers who have cheered the onslaught on—typically those holding orthodox Catholic views upholding Israel as God’s chosen nation.

Israel’s relentless pounding of Gaza, resulting in the wanton slaughter of innocents, has long outlived its excuse of neutralizing Hamas. It is genocidal butchery by any standard, this calculated starvation of Gaza’s remaining residents, the killing of aid workers, and the mechanical attribution of atrocities to “operational errors.” Netanyahu’s encouragement of Trump’s crass and bizarre proposal to depopulate Gaza so he can turn it into “the Riviera of the Middle East” reveals the utter moral depravity of these two men.

Israel’s barbarism in its campaign of terror and annihilation has now exceeded Hamas’ own (yes, unlike many protestors, I hold Hamas accountable for its own brutality—something that will surely not endear me to the far Left on this issue). Those of us who study Elizabethan revenge tragedy know this only too well: the line beyond which the revenger no longer seeks justice but mindless retribution, and becomes a horrifying, blood-soaked caricature of the very object it opposes.

The question for us writers is: will any of this be helped by withdrawing our participation from one of the world’s largest (if arguably not freest) exchanges of ideas through books? Will we prevent ourselves at Frankfurt—should the need and opportunity arise—from expressing our opinions on Gaza, among a host of other global issues concerning human rights? (Current German rules restrict financial support to artists seen as anti-Israel, especially those identified with the Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions movement or BDS, among other repressive measures.)

My answer is no. I stand for peace and justice for both the Palestinian and Israeli people—indeed, for all oppressed peoples of the world, including our own. But divesting ourselves of a historic opportunity to express our collective resistance to injustice—not just in Gaza or over this one issue, no matter how pressing, will only be counter-productive. Unless it catches fire (other prominent authors elsewhere, as in Indonesia—which was GOH some years ago—have expressed support), a symbolic boycott will be as deafening and as consequential as a tree falling in the forest.

In the end, this will come down to an individual act of conscience, however one decides, for which we must reserve our respectful acceptance. Whether one goes or stays, one’s reasons or motives have to be clear, so the gesture will not be wasted. I will go to Frankfurt proudly, with neither guilt nor shame, to speak about our people and our struggles for freedom through my books. Engagement, not withdrawal, will be the best service writers can perform for their country and for all oppressed and silenced people everywhere.

Politicians like to wave one flag—Filipino, American, Israeli, Palestinian. Literature, like all art, has many flags: peace, justice, freedom, equality, truth, love, beauty, and harmony. Let all these fly in Frankfurt.

(Image from Studio Dialogo)

Penman No. 468: A Game of Prompts

Posted on November 25, 2024 by penmanila

Penman for Sunday, November 17, 2024

I WAS in Dumaguete recently for a seminar organized by the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines to encourage local authors and publishers to break out into the international market, following through on our participation at the Frankfurt Book Fair. I was asked to talk about “The Future of Literature,” but I chose to turn that around and talk instead about the literature of the future.

Taking off from the challenges and opportunities posed by artificial intelligence, I put forth a series of “provocations” that writers and publishers could think about. Let me share part of what I said:

My first provocation: the literature of the future, or some part of it, will be a game of prompts: not just or not mainly to copy existing writers, but to produce results that will be a hybrid of the author’s creativity in prompt-making and AI’s selectivity, drawing from its enormous stock of possible responses. This will be writing as a form of play, of co-authorship between man and machine.

Following through from this is Provocation No. 2: Expect the growth of the literature of hybridity—of more crossovers from one genre or form to another, from one language to another, from one sensibility to another. This is by no means new and has been happening for some time now, but there will be an even greater and more deliberate blurring of traditional boundaries, more experimentation.

To some extent, that will be because—and here’s Provocation No. 3, and to use this generation’s favorite trigger-word—there will be less gatekeeping. Or, if not less, then more resistance to or disregard of it. There will be more independent publishing and self-publishing to counter the influence of traditional publishing houses. But this free-for-all will also likely lead to a general decline of standards, as writers forgo the services of editors and the critical evaluations of quality- and market-minded publishers.

Provocation No. 4: The big novel will survive, simply because of the power of inertia, and because there will always be a need for something as capacious to contain and possibly comprehend the ever-growing complexity of human life. Our exposure to the international market at the Frankfurt Book Fair will also provide more impetus to the production of novels, something at which we Filipinos have not been particularly good at, historically speaking.

On the other hand—Provocation No. 5—there will be a general shortening and simplification of form, as writing seeks to approximate the meme, or Tiktok. I don’t know exactly how this will happen, or what form it will take, but when I look at the frankly scary popularity of Lang Leav, I worry that people will see that kind of poetry as the new standard. Of course Emily Dickinson was just as short if not even shorter 150 years ago; she would have made a fine poet for our time.

Given what the world is going through, and the even bleaker future humanity faces, I propose—Provocation No. 6—that the literature of the future will be one of survival, of coping, of enduring. I have recently been advocating the need to produce a literature of hope, but that will be a difficult ask for young writers just trying to keep their heads above the water, and more understandably concerned with this life than with anything that may follow. Science fiction and fantasy will always go over the visible horizon, anticipating a distant future albeit in often dystopian terms, but for most, it will be the literature of next week.

And in that increasingly diminishing and threatening universe—Provocation No. 7—when our precious selves are all we have left to cling to, the literature of “I am,” the first-person narrative, and the politics of identity will prevail. When we no longer trust the government, business, education, our parents, the Church, and even God, and on the verge of losing control of our own petty lives, we will desperately fight to be recognized, acknowledged, and maybe even loved. We will leave nations and societies to the editorialists and social scientists; in fiction and poetry, we will seek solace and sense.

Let me just say a few words about the Frankfurt Book Fair, the 2024 edition of which I and some of us here attended last month. As you know, the Philippines will be Guest of Honor next year, which will do much to project the visibility of Philippine literature overseas. Even this year, many gains were already achieved by our writers and publishers, with dozens of deals signed for the translation and publication of our books in foreign markets.

Post-Frankfurt, Filipino writers will think of writing for the world—not necessarily in English although that’s always an option, but through translation, which will be the great equalizer. The huge surge in translation coming out of Frankfurt—not just from Filipino to English but from our other Philippine languages, including English, to other global languages—will forever change our literary culture, which has traditionally and quite unfairly favored our writers in English when it comes to recognition beyond our shores.

Also, and this may be a controversial point, I’ve long had this suspicion—and maybe Frankfurt proves it—that the rest of the world doesn’t really care about (because it doesn’t know about nor understand) the differences between Tagalog, Iluko, Bikol, and Cebuano etc. literature. When we reach foreign readers in translation, we’re all Filipino—and only Filipino—just as African or Indian literature appear to us as cultural blocs rather than deeply variegated constructs. This has its positives and negatives, but I tend to lean on the positives, which are a reminder that our literature helps define a cohesive national experience and identity above the regional and ethnic markers otherwise so precious to us.

In one of my sessions in Frankfurt, I was asked a question, to which I replied: “I will always be more optimistic about literature than politics.” Given what has just happened in America, and what that will mean for the rest of the world, I have to believe this even more than ever.

Qwertyman N0. 117: Our Best Books Forward

Posted on October 28, 2024 by penmanila

Qwertyman for Monday, October 28, 2024

NOW ON its 76^th year, the Frankfurter Buchmesse (FBM)—better known outside Germany as the Frankfurt Book Fair, the world’s oldest and largest such event—ended successfully last October 20 with a significant representation from the Philippines, which sent scores of authors, publishers, and book industry officials to the fair. All that was in preparation for FBM 2025, when the Philippines will be Guest of Honor (GOH), the country whose literature will be the focus of the fair’s attention.

You can think of the Frankfurt Book Fair as the Olympics of the global book industry, with over 200,000 participants (book industry persons and the public) representing over 100 countries. However, there are no prizes for Best Novel, Best Nonfiction Book, Best Children’s Book, and so on. Everyone is effectively in competition with everyone else, but the real rewards are in the professional and personal connections made between and among authors, publishers, agents, editors, and translators at the fair, connections that materialize into deals for translation and publication rights. Although exhibited books can be sold at the close of the fair, the FBM isn’t meant to sell books, but rights to books, for which it has become the world’s oldest and largest marketplace. This means that, through the right contacts, Filipino books can be translated into and sold in French, Turkish, Spanish, and Urdu editions, etc. and vice versa.

Becoming GOH is a signal distinction—but it doesn’t come free. Nations vie and pay for the honor, which this year went to Italy and in 2026 will go to the Czech Republic. I’m sure that there have been and will be more criticisms of our participation in Frankfurt, chiefly of the costs of our foreign exposure vs. the local promotion of our literature, but it’s not a zero-sum game. We need both kinds of investments. We have impressive literary production from all over the country—much of it unknown even to ourselves—but we also need to share the best of it with the world, to raise their understanding of the Filipino above the stereotypes they know (Imelda’s shoes, Manny Pacquiao, DHs, cruise ship crewmen, etc.—not all of them bad, for sure, especially our OFWs, but in need of context).

If FBM 2024 was any indication, FBM 2025 will be an even more resounding success for the Philippines. All literary genres were represented this year in terms of books and panel discussions, and valuable connections were made with European publishers, translators, and agents. Philippine literature will never be the same after this. (This year’s upshot for me is that my novel Soledad’s Sister will be coming out soon in Spanish, after its versions in Italian, French, and German.)

Having followed trends in international publishing for some time, I’m particularly impressed by the way the FBM has helped to promote our new writing by young authors in literary categories that have traditionally received less attention compared to what I’ve called “the big white whale” of publishing, the novel. Approach most publishers and agents at the FBM, and what they’ll ask you is, “Where’s your novel?” For primarily commercial reasons, the novel remains the most saleable and traded commodity at book fairs. (I know many who will wince at my reference to books as commodities, but let’s be absolutely clear about this: the bottom line of book publishing and book fairs is business, not “Kumbaya”-type international peace and understanding.)

Sadly, however, Filipinos have historically not been a novel-writing, novel-buying, and novel-reading people. In this respect, Rizal’s Noli and Fili are aberrations, familiar to us only and thankfully because of the law requiring their study. That said, our writers are masters of the short literary forms—poetry and the short story in particular. I’ve often remarked that we Pinoys are world-class sprinters, not marathoners; our world-view is not Olympian, but pedestrian, formed close-quarters at street level.

This year, I’m told that over 70 deals were made between Filipino authors and foreign agents and publishers for the translation and publication of works that went well beyond the traditional novel, including children’s stories (another of our strongest suits) and genre and graphic fiction. These authors were young, and some had their works translated from languages other than English. If anything, this surge in translations, long overdue, is one strategic benefit that our FBM participation has enabled, and our GOH status next year should boost it even further.

According to FBM Director Juergen Boos, “I am very excited about the Philippines’ Guest of Honor presentation in 2025. The motto ‘The imagination peoples the air’ resonates with the universality of storytelling. Even though the Philippines is the world’s thirteenth largest nation with more than 109 million citizens, I believe for many of us in Europe, Philippine literature is currently still rather unknown territory. As the country steps into its role as Guest of Honor, we will learn a lot about the importance of storytelling and today’s cultural scene for Philippine civil society. With an incredible 183 different languages spoken on its 7,641 islands, the country’s diverse influences are one of the aspects I am looking forward to seeing in Frankfurt in 2025.”

I did say that there are no prizes awarded at the FBM, but I have to correct that to acknowledge the Diagram Group Prize for the Oddest Title at the FBM, given since 1978 and now voted upon by the public, and won by such books as Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude Mice, The Joy of Chickens, How to Shit in the Woods: An Environmentally Sound Approach to a Lost Art, and If You Want Closure in Your Relationship, Start with Your Legs. This is not a prize to which Filipino writers have so far aspired, but who knows? Pinoy wackiness (alongside wisdom) knows no bounds.

Many thanks to the National Book Development Board, the National Commission for Culture and the Arts, the German literary organization LitProm, culture champion Sen. Loren Legarda, and our other sponsors and supporters for this great opportunity to put our best books forward on the global stage. Mabuhay!

Qwertyman No. 85: Epilogue to a Novel

Posted on March 18, 2024 by penmanila

Qwertyman for Monday, March 18, 2024

IT WAS in 1986, shortly after EDSA and my arrival in the US for my graduate studies, that I began thinking about what would eventually become my master’s thesis and my first novel, Killing Time in a Warm Place. It was published by Anvil in 1992 when I came home to resume teaching after completing my PhD.

For those who’ve never heard of it, the novel is a semi-autobiographical account of coming of age during the Marcos years, from the point of view of a Filipino who makes the traditional journey from island to metropolis to the world at large, becoming, in the process, a kind of political chameleon.

I had sent the first draft directly to several US publishers—my first try at getting a book published abroad—and one of them, Alfred Knopf, responded. They were interested, they said, but they needed some revisions. I knew very little about the book publishing industry then; I had no agent, wasn’t sure what lay ahead, and was in a hurry to see my book out, so I passed on Knopf—which turned out to be a titan in literary publishing—and went with Anvil, which had barely just opened.

I haven’t regretted that decision, although the Knopf deal, had it pushed through, would have been a tremendous break, not just for myself but for Philippine literature as a whole. I could understand that after EDSA, US publishing was hungry for books from and about the Philippines, so that opportunity was there, but I was also impatient to be read as a novelist by my fellow Filipinos, after having written short stories and plays.

Anvil published the book in many printings and editions over the next two decades, as it got on the syllabi of college teachers who were looking for a novel in English on martial law, alongside Lualhati Bautista’s iconic Dekada 70. This has been my greatest reward and satisfaction from this book—knowing that somehow, it helped some of my countrymen understand what they went through.

It took a while for the novel to gain some traction overseas. In 2010, it was published in the US by Schaffner Press in a dual edition with my second novel, Soledad’s Sister. In 2012, it was translated into Spanish by Maria Alcaraz and published in Barcelona by Libros del Asteroide under the title Pasando el rato en un pais calido.

A few months ago, I received the happy news from my publisher Anvil that Killing Time was being picked up by the German publisher of Soledad’s Sister, which had apparently been doing well in the German market. So now the book is being translated into German, hopefully for a launch by Transit Verlag in time for the Frankfurt Book Fair this October, leading up to our big Frankfurt Guest of Honor year in 2025.

But I didn’t write this column just to tell you about the story of a book—rather, I wanted to say something about the story of its story.

In a message to Anvil a few days ago, my German publisher requested that I write a short epilogue to the novel, given that it’s been more than 30 years since it first came out, and that many things have happened since to the world and the Philippines—the Internet, Trump, and fake news, among others.

So I sat down and wrote the short piece below, which I’m sharing with you since it’s highly unlikely that you’ll come across, or understand, the German translation of this epilogue if and when the new edition comes out. Here goes:

I began writing this novel in 1986, shortly after the downfall of the Marcos regime. That happened because of a massive uprising in Manila’s streets that made headlines and became a kind of model for peaceful anti-authoritarian movements worldwide. I proudly took part in that revolt, and felt the euphoria of liberation after more than a decade of martial law. It was a moment I would often return to and savor as the Iron Curtain fell and as various and largely non-violent revolutions took place elsewhere, including the Arab Spring.

I thought then that the best thing I could do was to write a novel that would try and explain how and why people fell under the spell of a dictatorship, as they did under Nazi Germany—not sparing myself, having been complicit in its later actions as an employee of the regime. I wrote it—in English—in America, mainly to fulfill my graduate school requirements, but also to celebrate our hard-won victory and share the good news with the world.

Almost four decades later, the seemingly unthinkable has happened: the right is back in power, not only in the Philippines but in many places we had thought to be reformed democracies. The optimism sweeping the planet toward the end of the 20^th century has given way to a darkening horizon, a hardening of hearts, a closing of minds. Our most basic freedoms and values are under stiff and unrelenting assault, from forces we now realize had never really been vanquished but had merely been lying in wait, biding their time, seeking an opportunity for revival amidst the excesses of late capitalism.

And once again I am hearing the siren song of despotism, and see the eyes of people glazing over in the desperate desire for quick relief from their troubles, for quick salvation. I hear the march of boots, to which many young citizens—their ears plugged by loud music—seem indifferent. Even among many of their elders is a renascent yearning for the simple discipline of strongman rule.

I see all these and I wonder if I should write a sequel, an update for the new century, but what would be the point of repetition? My novel was supposed to be about the past. Why is it so suddenly pertinent again?

Qwertyman No. 45: Onward to Frankfurt?

Posted on June 12, 2023 by penmanila

Qwertyman for Monday, June 12, 2023

IF YOU were at the Philippine Book Festival (PBF) that took place at the World Trade Center earlier this month, you would have been surprised to find how many Filipinos were writing, publishing, selling, buying, and reading books. A project of the National Book Development Board (NBDB), the PBF was the first such event devoted solely to locally produced books—as opposed to, say, the Manila International Book Fair (MIBF) in September, which is open to books and publications from overseas. The NBDB wisely decided to showcase our homegrown literary talents—not only from Manila, and not only from my generation of old fogeys, but from all over the country, and writers of all persuasions and ages (as young as fourteen!).

We Pinoys have become so immersed in Netflix, YouTube, and social media that many of us have forgotten about reading, and what a good book can do for one’s mind and soul. We want everything delivered to us in short sentences—even in acronyms or, if possible, in memes—because long paragraphs (and, God forbid, pages) can only mean a waste of our precious time (which is, of course, best spent posting what we last ate on Instagram, and critiquing someone’s OOTD). Whether fiction or nonfiction, books challenge us to carry ideas through to the limits of our reason and imagination. The difference between a good meme and a good book can be that between wit and wisdom—between the bubbles that rise to the top of your champagne and the notes that linger on your tongue and senses long after you’ve put your drink down.

And despite the death knells that have been tolled for publishing and reading in this country, the droves of people who flocked to the PBF and the MIBF show otherwise; as I’ve noted elsewhere, more new authors and publishers are emerging across various genres and languages than ever before, spurred by writing programs and workshops, new technologies, and more exposure for Filipino writers in international markets.

That last note—the emergence of Philippine writing in the global consciousness—has been a long time coming. We’ve had, of course, writers who’ve been published abroad, most notably Jose Rizal and the late National Artist F. Sionil Jose. In America, both expatriate and US-born writers such as Gina Apostol, Ninotchka Rosca, Jessica Hagedorn, Eric Gamalinda, Zach Linmark, and Brian Ascalon Roley have made important inroads into publishing, some with mainstream publishers. Of course, they were preceded by the likes of Carlos Bulosan, Jose Garcia Villa, NVM Gonzalez, and Bienvenido Santos, in a time when getting published in America seemed to be the apex of a literary career. We’re way past that now, having found our own voice and our own readers right here at home.

I’ve often remarked that I’d rather be read by 10,000 Filipinos than 100,000 Americans, but I may have spoken too soon, as even those 10,000 Pinoys willing to buy and read a serious novel can be hard to round up. Therein lies the irony: we’re happy to write and publishers seem happy to publish, and the high attendance at the PBF could be a sign that things are changing, but creating a critical mass of local readers for literature remains a struggle.

Even in America, where we imagine that almost four million Filipinos should be able to clear out an edition of 5,000 books without any trouble, that simply doesn’t happen. I suspect that that’s because we’ve never really been a book-reading culture, unlike the Japanese and the Indians, and the easy availability of entertainment on Netflix and Tiktok just aggravates the situation. (A more disturbing possibility is that our writers still haven’t learned to write the kind of stories with the kind of treatment that Filipino readers—and there are also many kinds of them—expect, without sacrificing literary “quality,” whatever that means. In my old age, this is what I’m aiming for—to give my readers stories that they’d want to see turned into movies.)

There’s no doubt that we’re producing materials of high literary value—in English, Filipino, and our regional languages; we saw that in the PBF and we see it in our classes and workshops all the time. These works deserve to be shared with a broad audience—not just here, but overseas, where the Chinese, the Japanese, the Koreans, the Indonesians, and the Vietnamese have already made a name for themselves in the publishing world.

But that takes a network we still have to familiarize ourselves with and learn how to navigate—a network of translators, literary agents, editors, publishers, and booksellers largely unknown and therefore closed to us. We’re not totally clueless. Through the NBDB and local publishing stalwarts such as Karina Bolasco (just recently retired from the Ateneo Press and the founder of Anvil Publishing before that) and Andrea Pasion-Flores (our very first international literary agent, now owner of Milflores Publishing and president of the Book Development Association of the Philippines), the Philippines has been represented over the past few years in such major events as the annual Frankfurt Book Fair, the world’s largest such market of authors, publishers, and agents.

Not meaning to be immodest, thanks to my agents and publishers, I myself have benefited from this kind of exposure, having sold my second novel Soledad’s Sister in last year’s FBF into a German translation and edition, which just came out; before that, it had already been translated into and published in Italian and French, aside from an American edition. Imagine what that network could do for the rest of our writers.

This brings me to an idea whose time, I strongly believe, has come: focal representation in a forthcoming Frankfurt Book Fair as a “guest of honor,” a position reserved for a country wishing to showcase the best of its literary talent across all genres (two years ago it was Canada, followed by Slovenia). This has to be accompanied by a strong effort in translation—from the regional languages to English, and from English to other international languages like Spanish and French, perhaps even Chinese. It will take much planning and a sizeable budget, but as our recent forays into the Venice Biennale have shown on behalf of our leading artists, with the right cultural leadership and vision, it can be done.

Penman No. 224: Fantastic, Frenetic Frankfurt (2)

Posted on November 7, 2016 by penmanila

Penman for Monday, November 7, 2016

GOING TO the Frankfurt Book Fair was a great opportunity to renew old friendships and make new ones within both the global and Philippine publishing community. While we authors count publishers among our closest and most valuable friends, I realized in Frankfurt that we really don’t talk about their side of the business that much, as engrossed as we often are by our own fabulations.

I was particularly happy to finally meet Renuka Chatterjee, who had been India’s premier literary agent when she worked for the big Osian’s cultural conglomerate in New Delhi. As my first literary agent, Renuka had been instrumental in getting my second novel, Soledad’s Sister, translated and published in Italy; but more than that, she guided me through my first textual revisions, through which I began to learn how international publishing worked. When Osian’s shut down its literary operation, I passed on to another very capable agent in New York, and Renuka eventually joined another leading publishing house in India, Speaking Tiger. We had corresponded by email over the years, but Frankfurt gave us an excuse and a venue for a long-overdue face-to-face.

Another acquaintance lost and found was the dynamic and groundbreaking Malaysian publisher Amir Muhammad, whom I had first met at a conference in Penang in 1992; Amir gifted me with a new trilogy of Southeast Asian stories he had just published, featuring the works of some of our best young Filipino authors. (Those books—like many others I’ve gathered on my travels—are now lodged at the Gonzalo Gonzalez Reading Room in UP, where we keep a repository of contemporary Southeast Asian literature.) Indeed, and not surprisingly, the Malaysians became the Philippine delegation’s best buddies at the fair; we frequented their booth to partake of the nasi lemak and to trade notes on the writing life. The Indonesians were equally hospitable, and our troop of visitors enjoyed a chat and the inevitable selfie with their star, the novelist Eka Kurniawan, whose Man Tiger made the 2016 Man Booker International Prize long list.

Neither were the long hours at our own booth wasted, as a steady stream of visitors curious about our books and our culture came by to browse, to converse, and to do business. Business, after all, was what most people went to the book fair for, and while some of us minded the store, our delegates were often out meeting with their counterparts from the US, the UK, Europe, and the rest of Asia. (I had a very productive conversation with a gentleman from Montenegro who runs a kind of global blog of blogs—expect “Penman” to appear there soon, but only after it’s published here, of course.)

It was the Ateneo University Press’ new boss Karina Bolasco’s third straight year at the fair, which she had previously attended representing Anvil Publishing. University presses don’t generally look at their books as profit-makers, reducing the financial pressure somewhat, but Karina still had a full schedule of meetings with academic publishers, especially longtime Philippine partners such as the University of Wisconsin Press. “Our job is to negotiate for reprint rights,” Karina told me. “We try to find material already published abroad that will be interesting to Filipino readers, and we also offer other presses the rights to reprint Filipino works with a global appeal.”

One of the most visited displays in the Philippine booth this year was that of Mandaluyong-based OMF Literature, Inc., which has published religious and inspirational books since 1957. OMF CEO Alexander Tan told me that their market was big and growing—extending even to OFWs in the Middle East—and that it had developed its own local stars such as pastor Ronald Molmisa, who draws huge crowds to his lectures on love and relationships. “I realized that by breaking the rules and letting people like Ronald use Taglish in their books, we could reach more readers,” Alex said.

On the other hand, literary agents like Andrea Pasion-Flores, who now works with the Singapore-based Jacaranda agency, assume the task of representing Filipino authors abroad and finding publishers to buy their works (and who then assign editors to work closely with the authors on revising their text for publication). Andrea—an accomplished author in her own right who also happens to be a lawyer and the former executive director of the National Book Development Board—is the first and, so far, the only literary agent working actively in the Philippines. Jacaranda has already sold the rights for such distinguished Filipino writers as the late Nick Joaquin, Charlson Ong, Isagani Cruz, and Ichi Batacan (whose Smaller and Smaller Circles will be a movie soon).

Andrea and her Jacaranda colleagues Jayapriya Vasudevan and Helen Mangham spent long working days in Frankfurt at the exclusive Literary Agents section upstairs, which only registered agents (who paid a hefty price for table space) and publishers could theoretically access. But Andrea secured a pass for me so I could observe the frenetic 30-minute “speed-dating” sessions that took place in hundreds of cubicles. “You’re probably the only author in this room,” Andrea told me. When I asked her what international publishers were looking for from Filipino authors, her response was quick and to the point: “The big novel, more genre fiction, and more high-quality literary fiction—and less ego, please, as Filipino authors generally aren’t used to revising their work!”

Back downstairs the next day, my companions at the Philippine booth were surprised to see me in animated conversation in Filipino with a Caucasian lady, whom I was happy to introduce to everyone. Our visitor was Annette Hug, a novelist and translator who had come from her home in Zurich to meet with me and with her publisher at the book fair. Annette—who took her MA in Women’s Studies in UP and regularly practices her Filipino with an OFW friend—had just translated a piece I had published last month in the Philippine edition of Esquire magazine, a piece on extrajudicial killings that had somehow gone viral; Annette’s translation had come out that same day in a Swiss newspaper and she brought me my copies, fresh off the press. But apart from that sad topic, Annette had also just published a novel in German, Wilhelm Tell in Manila, based on Jose Rizal’s work on that Swiss hero’s life, and the UP Press will now explore the possibility of publishing a translation of her novel in the Philippines.

Another visitor was children’s book author and Palanca Hall of Famer Eugene Evasco, who just happened to be in Munich on a three-month research fellowship, so he took the three-hour train ride to Frankfurt to visit the fair and to take in the mind-blowing displays at the children’s literature section.

Of such providential encounters, magnified into the thousands, was the Frankfurt Book Fair made, and while I was there less on business than as a roving cultural ambassador of sorts, I was glad and privileged to tick another item off my bucket list. I’ve run out of space to talk about an excursion some of us took to trace the footsteps of that quintessential Filipino writer, Jose Rizal, in nearby Heidelberg, so I’ll save that for another column soon.

Penman No. 223: Fantastic, Frenetic Frankfurt (1)

Posted on November 1, 2016 by penmanila

Penman for Monday, October 31, 2016

I’VE BEEN to mammoth meetings before—the Modern Languages Association in Chicago, MacWorld in San Francisco, Comic-con in San Diego, for instance—but nothing comes close to the Frankfurt Book Fair in size and scope. Covering over ten hectares of exhibition space spread out over several buildings and many floors, it’s certainly the world’s biggest and best-known book fair, gathering participants from nearly 200 countries.

Unlike author-focused literary festivals, the vast majority of those participants are publishers, booksellers, editors, literary agents, and printing industry representatives, all looking to make a pitch and a sale of their wares across the globe. That globe may have been made much smaller by the Internet, but nothing still beats a face-to-face transaction with one’s possible partners, and that’s where a book fair like Frankfurt’s comes in, as a week-long physical marketplace where the world’s publishers, from the biggest to the smallest ones, all go.

Inevitably a few writers and artists stray into the mix (we spotted David Hockney through a crack in the wall being interviewed at the Taschen booth by German TV), and this year I was one of those lucky few, with some help from the National Commission for Culture and the Arts and the University of the Philippines. Spearheaded by the National Book Development Board and invaluably assisted by the prime advocate of culture and the arts in the Senate, Sen. Loren Legarda, the Philippines expanded and upgraded its representation at FBF 2016, with a much larger booth and an impressive array of books from all our major commercial and academic publishers. The NCCA also sponsored one of our top graphic artists, Manix Abrera, and it didn’t hurt that National Artist Virgilio Almario came along in his private capacity to accompany his wife Lyn and daughters Asa and Ani who were representing Adarna Books and the Book Developers Association of the Philippines.

While Filipinos have attended the FBF in dribbles for some time now, it was only this year that we went all out, helped incalculably by our bigger booth. Last year, publishers had to chip in P100,000 each to rent a tiny plot of real estate at the fair, which starts at 400 euros per square meter. Sen. Legarda’s timely intervention meant that publishers could put their rental money into bringing more representatives and more books, and our 2016 delegation hit a historic high at over 40 members.

Though not yet quite the pavilion that countries like China and Singapore could afford, our corner booth was colorful and visually attractive—a plus in a fair with thousands of such offerings, all competing for the passing viewer’s eye. Through the Ateneo University Press (now headed by Karina Bolasco, formerly of Anvil Publishing), the Philippines also had another albeit smaller booth in another hall as part of the FBF’s invitational program, an affirmative-action project that brings in and sponsors selected publishers from developing countries. Predictably, China’s exhibit occupied a whole city block (for the price of which they could have gotten a better English editor for their signs, which proclaimed “Chinese Publication”).

On the other end of publishing pomp and circumstance, the FBF annually invites and celebrates a Guest of Honor, and this year it was the Netherlands and Flanders, which decked out an enormous hall as a haunting landscape reminiscent of the Dutch flatlands. The Guest of Honor status focuses attention not only on that country’s literature but its entire culture and society, providing an opportunity to put one’s best foot forward (Dutch royalty attended the opening ceremonies, lending a touch of glamor to the event—and ratcheting up security for everyone). The Guest of Honor also gets to choose a theme for its exhibit, which this year was “This Is What We Share” (last year, New Zealand—on the other side of the world, for Europeans—whimsically chose “While You Were Sleeping”). My fancy tickled, I asked what the Philippines needed to be named Guest of Honor—one can both apply or be invited—and received an unequivocal answer: “Millions of dollars.” I shut up.

Its cultural import aside, the book fair means big business for Frankfurt, which, in partnership with the private sector, leases out the fair grounds to such clients as the publishers’ association which directly runs the book fair; at other times the venue hosts other big events such as automotive fairs and a forthcoming Justin Bieber concert. Last year the FBF brought in 250,000 participants, a figure the organizers expect to rise to 280,000 in 2016.

This year’s edition of the Frankfurt Book Fair is officially the 68^th, but it traces its lineage much farther back to medieval times, when friars traded pages of illuminated Biblical manuscripts. There’s still a special section of the FBF devoted to the antiquarian trade, to which I gravitated naturally, being interested in all things ancient. Other than this parchment-heavy and leather-bound corner, the FBF dwells and thrives on nothing but new, newer, and newest—new books, new ideas, new authors, new media, new technologies, new markets, new connections, new networks.

Exhibits are grouped by geographic region, by language, and by theme, so one has to roam far and wide to get the full scale of things and to zero in on specific interests. Much of the business at Frankfurt, however, is pre-planned; with table space at a premium, publishers and agents would have emailed each other months or weeks in advance to set up meetings for specific dates and times in Frankfurt.

The publishers of so-called “trade books”—novels, cookbooks, children’s books, etc. aimed at the general public—showcase their works to attract attention from international publishers and booksellers who may want to translate them into another language, or to sell the books on consignment in other countries. Academic publishers—this year we were represented by the UP Press, Ateneo de Manila University Press, and UST Press—negotiate among each other for reprint rights, which can make costly works more easily available to local readers.

Led by NBDB Chair Neni Sta. Romana-Cruz, the Philippines launched its exhibit with a reception at its booth on the fair’s formal opening on October 19, a well-attended event graced by Ambassador Melita Sta. Maria-Thomeczek (who was happy to recall that she had once been an employee in Rio Almario’s Adarna Books and had been a student of Rio’s wife Lyn at Maryknoll) and by First Secretary and Consul Cathy Rose Torres, who herself happens to be a prizewinning fictionist. The reception was catered by Maite Hontiveros, who laid out a scrumptious spread that featured lumpia, spoonfuls of adobo on rice, mango juice, and Philippine chocolate, which were clearly a hit among our foreign guests.

Filipino books, of course, remained on top of the menu, and for the next week, we took turns at the booth to entertain visitors and book buyers from other countries, while occasionally slipping out to survey the vast array of exhibits and inevitably to marvel at the scope, vitality, and quality of global publishing in the 21^st century. I came away even more convinced that culture is a global battleground, and that books are weapons—of mass instruction, if you will.

Next week, I’ll share the highlights of my conversations with key people at the book fair, and report on retracing Rizal’s footsteps in Heidelberg.

Pinoy Penman 3.0

The continuing chronicles of Jose Dalisay Jr., aka Butch Dalisay, a Filipino collector of old fountain pens, disused PowerBooks, '50s Hamiltons, creaky cameras and typewriters, VW spare parts, poker bad beats, and desktop lint.

Tag Archives: Frankfurt