Sen. Legarda champions Filipino literature at Frankfurt Book Fair

The Philippines officially took center stage as the Guest of Honour (GOH) at the 77th Frankfurt Book Fair 2025 in Germany, marking a milestone moment for Philippine literature on the global stage.

In her keynote address during the fair’s opening on Tuesday, Senator Loren Legarda—the visionary behind the Guest of Honour program and Chairperson of the Senate Committee on Culture and the Arts—invoked the revolutionary spirit of Dr. Jose Rizal as she celebrated Filipino imagination and identity before the world’s largest book fair audience.

“It was not arms the colonizers feared most, but ideas,” Legarda said. “Ideas that roused a nation and ignited the first revolution in Southeast Asia.”

Tracing Rizal’s intellectual journey through Germany—his studies in Heidelberg, his poetic reflections along the Neckar River, and his completion of Noli Me Tangere in Wilhelmsfeld—Legarda called the country’s participation a “literary homecoming and a cultural awakening.”

“Ten years ago, I imagined this moment,” she shared. “Knowing what I have always believed, that Filipino voices belong among the world’s greatest literatures.”

With more than 400 Filipino writers, publishers, artists, and cultural workers participating, the Philippine delegation is showcasing hundreds of titles, performances, and talks under the theme “The imagination peoples the air,” a line drawn from Rizal’s Noli Me Tangere.

The country’s presence spans three major exhibition spaces: the Guest of Honour Pavilion at Forum 1 for literary and cultural programs; the Philippine Stand and Asia Stage in Hall 5.1 for publishing and co-rights exchanges; and the Comics Stand in Hall 6.1 spotlighting Filipino visual storytelling.

Legarda also addressed contemporary global challenges, urging that art and imagination must remain forces of conscience and change.

“Imagination must not be gentle; it is a necessary fire,” she declared. “Fire that burns away indifference. Fire that lights the dark corners where injustice hides.”

She concluded with a call for collective cultural action: “If one book written by a Filipino on German soil awakened a nation thousands of miles away, imagine what we, together, can awaken today.”

The Philippine Guest of Honour program runs until October 19, featuring a week-long series of literary exchanges, performances, and showcases that celebrate the depth and diversity of Philippine creativity.