Speaking at a book fair
I wasn’t too sure if it was my participation at the Dubai Poetic Heart Reading Festival in February 2015 that had led to this, but early this year, out of the blue, I received an invite to attend the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair 2016 from April 27 to May 3.
That poetry fest in Dubai had resulted in continued communication with one of the organizers, Tagore Peace Award winner Dr.
Shihab Ghanem. He requested a copy of a poem I had read, “The Beach, Plus Pablo,” which he then translated into Arabic. He had it published in the January 2016 issue of the cultural magazine Dubai Thaqafiyya.
Well, in the world poetry circuit, one thing leads to another. Maybe that’s how the organizers of the book fair in the United Arab Emirates’ capital got wind of this Filipino poet and writer.
In any case, subsequent correspondence had me agreeing to speak in a couple of sessions as part of the cultural program at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre. My 45-minute topics were “On Reading in SouthEast Asia” and “On Reading Poetry.” I was assigned slots on May 1 and 2.
The theme for the 26th edition of the ADIBF, billed as “the marketplace for the publishing industry in the Middle East and North Africa,” was “Reading the Past to Define the Future.”
For my separate sessions, I had to prepare papers at the last minute. Thanks to our National Book Development Board top honchos Neni Sta. Romana Cruz and Graciela Mendoza Cayton, my request for materials led to a compilation of the ASEAN Book Publishers Country Reports, as well as former NBDB head Andrea Pasion-Flores’ ASEAN statistics and her “Roadmap” for our country.
Thus armed, I became confident of my presentation for that first topic at the Abu Dhabi Book Fair. For the second, it would just be a matter of spinning off some truisms on the specialized genre, albeit I also prepared quotes on the subject and certain examples, including my own verse.
Here’s how my first presentation began, on paper:
“This very minute, out there in our region of Southeast Asia, at least one boy is perched on the back of a water buffalo standing in a rice paddy… and he is reading a book. Or maybe he’s under a mango tree, or up on its branches, enjoying that book. Not that it’s been a strong cultural tradition, really, as the countries in our region have had to slog along from oral traditions to a reading one for only a little more than a century.”
I then refer to the NBDB fact sheets on the first seven countries of the ASEAN, and quote from Atty. Pasion-Flores’ “Charting the Future of Books in the Philippines: A Roadmap of the Book Industry” — about how our country has “one of the lowest production of books in the world” and “very poor distribution systems for our books…”
From her “Book Markets Overview,” I quote the following:
“Book publishing in Asia and the Pacific has taken major strides in developing its market base within the global arena. Several literary festivals and book fairs, such as the Beijing and Shanghai book fairs, the Singapore Writers Festival, the Asian Festival for Children’s Content, the New Delhi World Book Fair, the Sydney Writers Festival, and the Jaipur Literary Festival have placed the spotlight on the region’s books and writers.”
More stats follow, inclusive of pointing out that the average number of new titles published per year in the Philippines is significantly lower than those among our neighbors, especially Singapore, which “has been the paradigm in our region.”
Oh, I also had optional passages mentioning how under very early Spanish rule, the first book that was written and published in the Philippines, in 1593, was
Doctrina Christiana, a book of Roman Catholic Catechism written by a friar. And of how three centuries later, two important books were written by the fellow who would become our national hero.
The optional use of these passages would depend on how much time would be left to address questions. But I was intent on concluding the part on comparative regional assessment with the following:
“In 2002, Singaporean and Philippine poets writing in English agreed to publish a bilateral anthology. This came out as Love Gathers All, and was published simultaneously by Anvil Publishing, Inc. in Manila and Ethos Books in Singapore.
“This may be a good portent for the future, when writers of SouthEast Asia collaborate on books that transcend national boundaries.”
The exhibition center appeared like a humongous hangar, with several numbered halls spilling into one another, running the length of a football field, as they say.
Thankfully, this venue was actually part of an extended structure whose front corner was occupied by the distinctive Aloft Hotel — hip moderne and among legions of its brand name all over the world.
It was where participants were lodged, so that one could just walk to the book fair at the sophisticated, avant-garde convention center called the ADNEC, said to be rapidly becoming a premier trade show location T in the Middle East. he exhibitors numbered 1,250, from 63 countries, and while most of the stalls featured purely Arabic titles, several displayed books in English and European languages. Italy was declared as this year’s Country of Honour, thus occupied a large central area, while the popular Show Kitchen corner focused on Italian cuisine, with chefs taking turns at regaling the crowd with cooking demonstrations and taste tests.
Other notable areas were those maintained by India, which was dominated by an ornately decorated elephant figure, and Egypt, which had a glass-encased mock-up of a mosque complex.
Open from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. except on Friday, the first day of the UAE weekend when everything went on hold till 4 p.m., the fair had sundry components and programs.
Story-telling sessions for children were organized by Zayed University, which encouraged reading activities through “Zu Reads: Initiative.” The Creativity Corner’s workshops also became a meeting point for children aged six to 12 years, with a variety of activities for each of the six different sections featuring Smart Learning, Art and Crafts, Inner Peace, Reading, Science, and Theater.
The Black Box Cinema called out to “Buy a Book, Watch a Film.” One could buy any film book at ADIBF and choose any film to watch from a program of shorts from nine to 21 minutes, such as Rest in Peace by Egyptian director Dina Abd El-Salaam, Omnia by Amna Al Nowais of UAE, and Bang Bang by Cyril Bassil of Lebanon. Other directors featured were from Tunisia, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, and Morocco, while one director, Basil Khalil, represented Palestine, France and Germany with his film “Ave Maria.”
The Illustrator’s Corner drew a gallery of observers, while the rest of the fair’s visitors kept wandering about the stalls and sections, or gravitated to the Ibn Rushed Forum or the Discussion Sofa where seats faced a dais for speakers included in the Culture Program and Professional Program. There were 91 of us speakers taking turns in hourly modules scheduled over the seven days of the fair.
Minutes before my first presentation, I bumped into David Lopez-Del Amo, a Spanish literary agent of Beijing SINICUS Consulting Co. Ltd., who had started corresponding with me by email last February. He had expressed interest in meeting up in Manila and perhaps get to drop in at the Silliman University National Writers Workshop that he had heard about from our common friend, Singaporean poet Alvin Pang.
David has also since spoken about various modes of literary networking, since he’s also a consultant for Acción Cultural Española, a Spanish government agency that he serves as a facilitator for literary projects in Asia. Unfortunately, he too had a module scheduled on the same hour, so he couldn’t attend mine.
We met again briefly over breakfast before he had to fly off the next day, but he did advise a lady he works with, Alexandra Buchler, to attend my talk on poetry. She turned out to be the director of the Wales- based Literature Across Frontiers or LAF, a “European Platform for Literary Exchange, Translation and Policy Debate.” She gave me a book of translations into English, How the Earth Carries Us: New Lithuanian Poets.
For my first talk, my host was Prof. Saddik Gohar, critic, translator and interpreter, and chair of the English Literature Department of the United Arab Emirates University. We enjoyed our session even if I had to skip parts of my prepared paper in favor of addressing his questions, as well as those of a highly engaged member of the audience, who introduced himself later as Zakaria Ahmed Eid, deputy managing editor and head of the translation department of Al Muallem Magazine.
My talk on poetry the next day became a full-fledged discussion — albeit allowing for a reading of a few poems — with my erudite host Abderrahim Aitalla. He heads the Translation & Languages Department of The Cultural Media Centre for HH Sheikh Sultan Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, HH The President’s Representative.
He also introduced me beforehand to a lady who said to simply call her Ruba. She was part of the organizational staff for the book fair. More or less she hinted that it was she who had taken note of my participation the year before in the Dubai poetry fest.
That’s how we get around, that’s how the networking goes when it comes to books and authorship, how we get to visit new agoras of friendship, where women and men of letters engage in the delightful vocation of ever expanding all kinds of literature across and beyond frontiers.