Towards that great café of books

Congratulations to the winners of the 30th National Book Awards handed out by the National Book Development Board and the Manila Critics Circle on Nov. 12 at the National Museum.              

Rhoderick Nuncio’s Sanghiyang sa Mundo ng Internet (Vibal Foundation and DLSU Press) won for Social Sciences. Simeon Dumdum Jr.’s If I Write You This Poem, Will You Make It Fly? (AdMU Press) won for Poetry. Romulo P. Baquiran Jr.’s Sagad sa Buto (UST Publishing House) won for Non-Fiction Prose.

For the category of Leisure, the award went to Celebrations (Anvil), with Karla Prieto Delgado, Gianna Reyes Montinola, Cristina Roces-Garcia, Ginny Roces-de Guzman, Sylvia Roces-Montilla, and Vicky Veloso-Barrera as co-authors.

The award for Design went to Felix Mago Miguel for To Give and Not to Count the Cost (AdMU Press). The Alfonso T. Ongpin Prize for Best Book on Art went to The Urian Anthology, 1990-1999 (UP and Film Development Council of the Philippines) by Nicanor G. Tiongson, while the Isagani R. Cruz Prize for Best Book in Literary Criticism was awarded to Banaag at Sikat: Metakritisismo at Antolohiya (NCCA) by Maria Luisa Torres Reyes.

The Juan C. Laya Prize for Best Novel in a Foreign Language was given to Blue Angel, White Shadow (UST) by Charlson Ong, while the Juan C. Laya Prize for Best Novel in a Philippine Language went to Lumbay ng Dila (C&E and DLSU Press) by Genevieve L. Asenjo.

Citations were given for the books Watersheds (Wide Angle Media) by Grace Roxas and The Great Men and Women of Asia (Ramon Magsaysay Foundation and Anvil), while University of Santo Tomas Publishing House was declared Publisher of the Year.

A formidable five in attendance at the MILF: Gemma Nemenzo, Paulynn Paredes Sicam, Danton Remoto, Criselda Yabes and Karina Bolasco

I’m particularly happy for the latest literary triumphs of my buddies “Joey” Baquiran, Charlson Ong, and “Jun” Dumdum. If the last, in particular, had not won the 30th National Book Award (for books published in 2010) for his exemplary title, I would’ve raised a howl. It was an inspired collection of poems on Philippine birds, written in strict verse forms that Dumdum Jr. unearthed from all over the world. From conception to execution, this book was tops.

Then again, I wish to repeat here my contention that the NBDB ought to rethink its policy of giving only one award per genre. When I was still with the Manila Critics Circle, in the years previous to the partnership with NBDB, our practice was to recognize how certain genres outdid others on certain years, and therefore would have more finalists. And if these finalists were so strong, we decided on giving more than just one National Book Award for a particular category. 

We were of the thinking then that while books in the same category would ultimately compete with one another, they also did, in a general way, with other finalists in other categories. After all, it was the particular quality of the individual books that merited the award. Thus, in some years, we would have two or three awardees for Poetry when that genre came up with many strong contenders, while no award might be declared for other categories that proved relatively weak for the year. 

On this 30th edition, for instance, the Bangko Sentral Prize for Best Book in Economics was not awarded. And this had to be stated, only because it was a distinctive prize with a sponsor. But there were other categories, too, that had no winners. Fine, if that’s how the judges saw it. On the other hand, Poetry, or for that matter any other strong genre, could have had more than one winner. I don’t say this just because poetry is close to my heart, but I know for a fact that it had more than one deserving book for the year’s awards.

Congratulations, again, to the NBDB, now chaired by Neni Sta. Romana Cruz, with Andrea Pasion Flores still serving as executive director, for its highly successful staging of the 2nd Manila International Literary Festival or MILF. (Yes! Something like the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. LOL!)

The three-day festival billed as “The Great Philippine Book Café” — said to be a curtsey to some vintage title authored by an aging vet — was held from Nov. 16 to 18 at Ayala Museum. It drew enthusiastic response from lovers of literature, who daily filled up the venues for the multiple theme sessions.

To be launched this Friday is a memorabilia book on the first 5-star hotel in Manila.

The presence of international literary stars certainly helped. Pulitzer Prize winners Edward P. Jones (for The Known World, 2004) and Junot Diaz (The Brief Wonderful Life of Oscar Wao, 2008) were the stellar come-ons. Then there were fiction writer Holly Thompson, from Yokohama City University where she teaches creative writing; literary editor Rachel Kahan of G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York; Ravi Mirchadandani, editor in chief for Atlantic Books UK; and Priya Doraswamy and Jayapriya Vasudevan of Jacaranda Press, India’s first and foremost literary agency. Indeed, the MILF has become even stronger in terms of international representation and participation, and it’s only on its second year.

Appropriately enough, the lit fest began with a keynote address by our esteemed literary scholar Resil Mojares, on the question “Where in the world is the Filipino writer?” I would’ve wanted to share his speech entire, but space considerations limit us to the following excerpt:

“Comparing the Philippines to Latin America is, of course, grossly unfair. History consigned us to the outer periphery of the Spanish Empire, and (despite current efforts of the Spanish government to reincorporate us into the ‘Spanish-speaking world’), we are not, cannot be, Latin America. History consigned us as well to being a small, distant, best-forgotten outpost in the early days of the American Empire (even if that empire, though no longer quite recognizable as the old one, is still with us). Three centuries of history disengaged us from fully participating in the region we are in (call it ‘Asian,’ ‘SouthEast Asian,’ or ‘Malay’) — and it is a region that, in literary terms, we have not quite claimed as our own. Yes, the comparison is unfair, but there are other lessons to be learned about the creation of literary spaces.

“A Filipino writer gaining international recognition or winning an international prize says a great deal about individual talent, but it does not say anything about the national literature — unless one can show there is more where he or she comes from. 

“So, how does Filipino writing become visible in the world?

“Perhaps, the prior question that should be asked is, How visible is Filipino writing to Filipinos themselves?

Rachel et al — Flanking G.P. Putnam’s Sons senior editor Rachel Kahan are Jayapriya Vasudevan and Priya Doraswamy of Jacaranda Press, India’s foremost literary agency.

“For (Pascale) Casanova, ‘national literary spaces’ are spaces defined by their claim to a different, autonomous literary identity. But for such a claim to be more than just a claim, she says, the national literary space must be built up through the accumulation and concentration of intellectual and literary capital, in the form of a professional milieu of schools and academies, publishing houses, a large and active community of writers and readers, systems of recognition and reward, and, most important, a truly distinctive body of work. It requires the articulation and expansion of a tradition that is, first of all, local, but one that appropriates foreign and transnational influences as well.

“Such accumulation does not come easy, and it depends greatly on other forms of capital, economic as well as political. I know it is difficult, but then writers are not writers if they are not in love with the difficult.

“For now, the important thing is not to wonder whether we are visible to the world but to ask how fully visible we are to ourselves. It is in becoming fully visible to ourselves that, I trust, we shall be visible to others.

“If I have not sounded too celebratory (as the occasion perhaps demands), I ask for your indulgence. I shall draw my excuse from the knowledge that writers feed on discontent as much as joy, and that, in the heart of writing, there is perhaps no difference between the two.”

To be launched on Friday, Nov. 25, is the coffee-table book Heartbeat Manila Hilton, co-authored by our bosom friend Marla Yotoko Chorengel and Letty Jimenez Lopez. The launch will be a Poolside Tea from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. at Ritz Tower Condominium, 6745 Ayala Avenue, Makati City 

Amiga Marla writes:    

“That time-dusted memory was of a Camelot era for the hotel/tourism industry — with our country’s first 5-star international hotel, of the Hilton worldwide chain, boosting our tourism as a country of choice. It became the architectural wonder of the 1960s, with its 22 storeys against the skyline — declared the tallest building in the country at the time.

“The book puts together recollections of over a hundred contributing writers: expat GMs from all over the globe, Manila Hilton employees and execs, all of whom excelled in professionalism. What we have is a compendium of friends’ remembrances — light, nostalgic reading taking one on a journey to the past.

“Among the well-known contributing writers are Amb. Isabel Wilson, Beth Day Romulo, Gemma Cruz, Elsa Payumo, Johnny Litton, Maurice Arcache, Paulo Alcazaren, Arthur Lopez, Atty. Romulo Macalintal, Arlene Babst Vokey from Canada, Isabel Escoda and Margie Logarta from Hong Kong, and Leslie Ann Murray of the American Club.

“There’s a chapter on our Perle Mesta of Asia La Conchita Sunico; the correspondence between the legendary Conrad Hilton and Lolita Delgado of Delgado Bros., a photo gallery with vintage photos of Don Anselmo Trinidad, Chitang Guerrero Nakpil with Adrian Cristobal and JV Cruz, Ting-ting Cojuangco, Margarita Fores, Carlos P. Romulo, Chona Kasten, Gloria Diaz, and of course then President Ferdinand Marcos and First Lady Imelda Romualdez Marcos. Why, I even have a photo with a Santa Claus and a couple of little girls in Assumption uniforms: Imee and Irene.

“It’s a fun book, although it took a lot of sweat and hard work, together with Letty Jacinto Lopez, Lolita Delgado Fansler, Fe Reyes Wanner from Vancouver, Carmita Francisco now of Enderun, and Rita Dy, Singapore Airlines executive: all fellow Hiltonites.”