The Philippines will be Guest of Honour of the 77th Frankfurter Buchmesse on Oct. 15 to 19, 2025. Today, the book fair’s Director, Juergen Boos, and the officials of the Philippines’ National Book Development Board (NBDB) signed the official Guest of Honour contract at a ceremony in Davao, Philippines. After Indonesia (2015), it will be the second time that the book fair welcomes a guest country from Southeast Asia to Frankfurt.
“I am very much looking forward to the Philippines’ Guest of Honour presentation. Our Guest of Honour programme does not only put the spotlight on the literature and culture of a specific region, but also aims to enhance the dialogue and network of the guest country within the international publishing world. Even though the Philippines is the world’s 13th largest nation with more than 110 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 Honour, 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,” Juergen Boos, Director of Frankfurter Buchmesse, said.
“The road to being the Guest of Honour was years in the making. Through the years, together with the NBDB, we worked to push for this dream. Our Guest of Honour year in 2025 will serve as a culmination of all our efforts. Indonesia was Guest of Honour in 2015—a first for a Southeast Asian country. 10 years later, it’s high time that another one be given the limelight. It’s high time that the international community read and appreciate our stories told in our own voices, recognize that Filipino stories are worth reading, and that they are complex and informed by the colonial and post-colonial imagination," Senator Loren Legarda from the Philippines said.
“I believe we would not have been offered the Guest of Honour if we were not poised to overcome greater heights. I’ve seen how my team has prepared long enough and is ready to mount a historic event. If the trajectory of the Philippines’ presence in the fair is any indication, it’s indeed time that the stories of our archipelago of over 7,000 islands be put under the limelight in the international arena,” Dante Francis Ang II, Chair of the NBDB said.
“Fast growing, the Philippines’ book publishing industry recorded a steady growth in revenue in the past five years. Come 2025, when we take the stage as Guest of Honour, we will tell the story of the Filipino: from our rich mythological history, the nationalistic novels of Jose Rizal, the empathetic post-ecological climate stories of our contemporary fiction, down to the colonial origins of capitalism and the humanity of our growing diasporic populations. We understand the scale and magnitude of this undertaking, and we are excited for this new chapter of Philippine literature and culture," Charisse Aquino-Tugade, Executive Director of the NBDB said.
At this year’s Frankfurter Buchmesse the Philippines will be represented with a stand (Hall 5.1 B66).