FRANKFURT, Germany — At the 2025 Frankfurt Book Fair, the world’s largest trade expo for the publishing industry, Filipino creativity leaves a breathtaking cultural mark with the Philippines’ distinction as the expo’s guest of honor this year.
The 77th Frankfurter Buchmesse, as the fair is called in German, kicked off with great fanfare showcasing Filipino literary and artistic culture at the Frankfurt Messe Congress Centre.
The Philippine Madrigal Singers and T’boli epic chanter Rosie Sula opened the ceremony before German government and Frankfurt city officials, Filipino diplomats, local and international press, and expo delegates from different parts of the world.
Filipina poets Merlie M. Alunan, Marjorie Evasco, and Mookie Katigbak-Lacuesta delivered poetry performances to the audience. German officials, meanwhile, gave speeches on literature, democracy, and digitalization.
Frankfurter Buchmesse director Juergen Boos referenced Philippine national hero Jose Rizal and his influential novel, Noli Me Tangere, from which the expo’s theme, “the imagination peoples the air,” was lifted.
“It reminds us how literature transcends boundaries and brings ideas to life,” Boos said about the theme.
“The Philippines is bringing more than 100 authors and artists to Frankfurt, and with them come books ranging from climate frequency to diaspora literature, from graphic novels to poetry.”
“They open up new perspectives on the diversity of an archipelago with 7,841 islands. And they show how literature transcends linguistic media and cultural boundaries across continents.”
Filipinos as ‘conceivers of ideas’
In her keynote address, Senator Loren Legarda stressed the historical connections between the Philippines and Germany through Rizal’s itinerary, from studying medicine to conceptualizing his famed novel.
“A poem to flowers in Germany became a letter to his homeland,” Legarda said of “A Las Flores de Heidelberg” (“Flowers of Heidelberg”), which Rizal wrote in 1886, a year before the publishing of Noli Me Tangere in Berlin.
The three-term senator has advocated the Philippines’ bid to become the Buchmesse’s guest of honor since seeing Indonesia’s role in 2015. At a spontaneous speech in one of the sessions this year, Sen. Legarda shared her office supported and increased the budget of the National Book Development Board in 2021, allowing it to present a professionally designed pavilion at the fair.
Legarda also spoke about how Filipino writers and artists “reclaim narratives” through language and imagination.
“Today, let the world see us for what we are: as knowledge-makers, as culture bearers, and as conceivers of ideas from which the world itself will learn. This is why we chose as our theme, ‘The imagination peoples the air,’ drawn from Noli Me Tangere.”
“[Our] geography that others call ‘fragmented,’ we call ‘infinite’. Imagination is the vessel that inspires our people of many talents and many spirits across mountains and seas. A nation freed because a son–set out to heal his mother’s eyes–became the writer who illuminated his people.”
Legarda expressed belief that “Filipino voices belong among the world’s greatest literature.”
Philippine ‘soft power’ at Buchmesse
On the opening day of the Buchmesse, the Philippines’ special stand and pavilion teemed not just with hundreds of featured book titles but also of ideas from Filipino authors, creatives, publishers, literati, cultural workers, and other delegates at various speeches and panel discussions.
Wednesday’s program featured a discussion on how poetry could shape a nation with National Artist for Literature Virgilio Almario, the launch of the German versions of Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo, among many others.
In a session on cultural diplomacy, Ambassador to the Czech Republic Eduardo Martin Meñez, who penned an essay on the Philippine soft power in the book Frontiers of Foreign Policy, opined the country’s “Guest of Honor” distinction may be the “most ambitious and largest effort by the Philippine government to project our culture and heritage to an international audience.”
“As the Guest of Honor, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for any country [and] an opportunity for all book sellers and publishers to really make connections so that the outcomes of this Book Fair can be translated into tangible, positive effects on the world’s perception about the Philippines,” Meñez said.
Buchmesse organizers said in local media reports that they anticipate over 200,000 visitors to attend the three-day expo.
The Philippine program on Thursday and Friday will include topics such as writing about climate change, covering the diaspora, publishing in the time of artificial intelligence, as well as a series of book launches and cultural workshops.
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