Rizal’s ‘Noli’ stars at Frankfurt Book Fair
More than 138 years since it was first published, Jose Rizal’s Noli Me Tangere will be in the spotlight at the Frankfurt Book Fair, the oldest and largest in the world.
The Noli thus returns to Germany in spirit, the country where its last chapters were written in the small town of Wilhemsfeld outside Heidelberg, and where it was first published in Berlin.
For the first time in the fair’s 500-year history, the Philippines will be its featured country this 2025 and recognized as “Guest of Honor,” bringing Filipino writers and publishers to the attention of 230,000 book lovers and 4,300 distributors from 92 countries.
The theme of the country’s special pavilion is taken from a line in the Noli, “Imagination peoples the air.” It will take place from Oct. 15 to 19 at the trade fair grounds in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
This landmark recognition is the product of a decade of campaigning by Sen. Loren Legarda, who first supported the Philippines’ more modest participation in the Frankfurt Book Fair as far back as 2015. Legarda has consistently pushed to harness the country’s sizable resources in soft power as a tool for cultural diplomacy and economic development. Legarda had likewise championed the Philippines’ return to the prestigious Venice Biennale, called the art world’s Olympics, after an absence of 51 years.
Legarda, who was first a journalist before entering public service, called writing “a vital means of empowerment.”
Indeed, the Noli was so powerful a tool that it cost Rizal his life and was the spark for the Philippine Revolution, making the Philippines the only country in the world whose political destiny was charted by the printed word.
Representatives of the Frankfurt Book Fair, led by Simone Bühler, head of the Guest of Honor Program, were in Manila recently to immerse themselves in the cultural environment of the country. The group traveled to Fort Santiago and Intramuros, Baguio artist communes and Bulacan’s seat of the Malolos Congress, as well as Iloilo, Boracay, and Antique.
Bühler praised the initiatives of Filipino writers in supporting diversity and creating a unique national narrative. “We must read because books tell people’s stories and through these stories, we learn about each other,” she said.
Legarda also emphasized, “Diplomacy can also be woven, sung, or carved, to speak across borders, embodying what I believe is our soft power in its purest form: the power to imagine together.”
Germany and the Philippines have a long shared history, although diplomatic relations only began 71 years ago in 1954. Today, Germany is the biggest trade partner of the Philippines in the European Union as well as the largest investor in the country from the EU.
Present at simple ceremonies at the National Museum of Fine Arts of the Philippines was its director-general Jeremy Barns, Charisse Aquino Tugade, executive director of the National Book Development Board, and German ambassador Andreas Michael Pfaffernoscheke.
