BEST FOOT FORWARD IN FRANKFURT

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 Oct. 19.

- penman BUTCH DALISAY

Filipino books on display at FBM 2024

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.