The Philippines will be the Guest of Honor at the Frankfurter Buchmesse or Frankfurt Book Fair in 2025. The announcement was made by the National Book Development Board, the government agency tasked with the development of the book publishing industry, at the opening of the Davao City leg of its Philippine Book Festival on 18 August.
On the same day, the GOH agreement was officially signed between the prestigious book fair’s president and chief executive officer, Juergen Boos, and NBDB officials led by chairman Dante Francis Ang II and executive director Charisse Tugade.
Held in the historic city of Frankfurt, Germany, FBM is the world’s largest book fair with more than five centuries of tradition. Since 1976, it features each year a GOH, a country which will be a focus of interest and which will have its own special literary program and special exhibition hall.
According to NBDB, an important aim of the GOH program “is to increase the number of translations from the host country into German. The great public interest shown in the GOH at the book fair each year is also an incentive for publishers worldwide to publish titles from the respective host country. In this way, Frankfurter Buchmesse’s Guest of Honor program promotes the international trade in licenses and the transfer of literature.”
The Philippines will only be the second country from Southeast Asia to be given the privilege after Indonesia in 2015.
Also present at the Philippine Book Festival was Senate President Pro Tempore and National Commission for Culture and the Arts Board of Commissioners member Loren Legarda, who served as the keynote speaker of the event which gathered publishers, book sellers, authors, readers and book lovers for three days at SMX Convention Center of SM City Lanang, and emphasized that such events are important for the enrichment and education of many.
“As Guest of Honor, we will be in a unique, prominent position in the global arena to show our publishing industry’s creativity and intellectual prowess,” she also said in a statement.
The legislator has been instrumental in the Philippines’ selection as GOH and said that she has been working on it for several years, believing that this opportunity will promote the country’s publishing industry in the global arena and will prove to be a great venue to highlight the Philippines’ culture and arts.
Writer and publishing veteran Karina Bolasco, then director of the Ateneo de Manila University Press, presented to Legarda the idea of supporting the country’s participation at FBM in 2015. Since 2016, the senator has pushed for this distinction as Guest of Honor.
“I have worked tirelessly for this, together with then NBDB chair Neni Sta. Romana Cruz and board members Karina Bolasco and Ani Almario. After eight years, since I learned about this fair and its importance in 2015, we have worked tirelessly, and now we have finally clinched that honor and distinction,” Legarda said.
She added: “This should translate to tangible, economic impact such as an increase in the number of actual book exports, in sales of translation rights and other derivative rights, and will expand opportunities internationally for our writers, book designers, artists and comics illustrators, all these while we establish, strengthen and expand our ties to our networks of publishers and cultural institutions across the world.”
Legarda believes that the country’s participation at the book fair will be a big boost to the country’s reputation as well as to its arts and creative industry.
FBM remains to be the most important marketplace for publishers, authors, literary agents, media professionals, illustrators and book and trade associations to negotiate their publishing and licensing rights. The 77th Frankfurter Buchmesse will be held from 15 to 19 October 2025.
The NCCA will be working with the NBDB and other agencies in discussing and strategizing the Philippines’ participation in 2025. An interagency meeting was immediately convened by Legarda on 22 August at the National Museum of Anthropology.
“I believe that a collaborative effort among various governmental agencies is essential to ensure the success of the Philippines’ participation in this momentous event,” she said.
Aside from NCCA and NBDB, the Department of Foreign Affairs, Department of Trade and Industry, National Historical Commission of the Philippines and National Museum of the Philippines were also invited to collaborate.
Boos underscored the significance of the Philippine participation during the meeting.
“To showcase the identity of a language of the country not only allows us to show the history but it also allows us to show today’s culture to deliver a story that showcases the Philippines,” he said.
Aside from the meeting, FBM and NBDB officials also met other collaborators like historian Ambeth Ocampo. They also visited book sellers and publishers in Metro Manila, such as Fully Booked, Rex Education and Vibal Publishing Group. FMB executives Claudia Kaiser and Simone Bühler and NBDB met with Phoenix Publishing House president Maria Pilar Fatima R. Sibal and her team to discuss their participation at the book fair as well as the importance of and development on educational and textbook publishing, a key player in the publishing industry.
Legarda also said that as senator, she “is deeply dedicated and committed to promoting education and literacy” and supports “this significant undertaking that instills a lifelong love for learning.”
“It is an honor to be here in the gathering of literary enthusiasts, authors, publishers and readers, who have all come together to celebrate and promote a culture of reading and writing in our country,” the legislator enthused.