Books published by the UST Publishing House were featured in both the exhibit and official catalogs of the National Book Development Board for the Frankfurter Buchmesse, the largest book trading and rights selling fair in the world in Frankfurt, Germany.
As part of the official Philippine delegation to the fair, USTPH director Benedict Parfan participated in panel discussions at the Asia Stage.
He was a speaker in the session “How free is academic publishing in Asia?” with Loren Agaloos of the University of the Philippines Press, Michael Duckworth from Hong Kong University Press, and Wei-Han Yvonne Chen from National Taiwan University Press where the panel delved into how their respective challenges are being addressed, and how they are navigating complex political landscapes.
Parfan also moderated the session “Freedom to Publish, Freedom to Read: Banned Books in Asia,” where speakers from the Philippines, Singapore, Egypt and India talked about how institutions exhibited subtle and concrete examples of censorship.
Several USTPH authors also played various roles as creatives, speakers, cultural workers, and publishing professionals. These included Jose Dalisay Jr., Ambeth Ocampo, Cecilia Manguerra Brainard, Anril Tiatco Pineda, Andrea Pasion-Flores, Khavn dela Cruz, Edgar Calabia Samar, Kristian Cordero, Angelo Lacuesta, Mookie Katigbak-Lacuesta and Eric Zerrudo, the executive director of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts which funded the grants for the Philippine delegates. Thomasian publishers Nida Ramirez of Avenida Books and Jun Matias of Lampara Books also represented their respective publishing houses at the fair.
To entice foreign publishers to pick up Philippine titles, the NBDB will provide translation grants for Filipino-authored works.
Assoc. Prof. Chuckberry J. Pascual of the UST Department of Creative Writing, also a USTPH author, said that the Philippines can learn from South Korea “because they were able to effectively disseminate Korean culture worldwide because of strong government support. Han Kang won the Nobel Prize because of her talent, but also because the Korean government put up the Literature Translation Institute of Korea, an agency dedicated to translating Korean literature into different languages, especially English.”
On the sidelines of the Asia Stage, the USTPH attended business meetings with international publishers and distributors along with delegates from the Ateneo de Manila University Press and the University of the Philippines Press.
