Cover Nolledo’s ‘But for the Lovers’ is the first reprinted book of Exploding Galaxies (Photo courtesy of Exploding Galaxies press)
Nolledo’s ‘But for the Lovers’ is the first reprinted book of Exploding Galaxies (Photo courtesy of Exploding Galaxies press)
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For this newly-minted publishing house, some books deserve a longer shelf life
Mara Coson started the idea of republishing older works of Philippine literature like how any passion projects begin: with a gutfeel. The publisher didn’t know where to start, all she knew was that one day she’d start a press.
Oftentimes, these kinds of endeavours remain and end at conception. Coson’s story took a turn for the better when she re-encountered Wilfrido Nolledo and was reminded of how severely unknown the author and his prolific works are. And she knew she just had to fix that. Thus, Exploding Galaxies came to be.
The independent publishing house was launched last June 10 at The Alley at Karrivin in Makati City, with its inaugural reprint, Nolledo’s But for the Lovers. It was an intimate fête of literature lovers, the press, and Nolledo’s family and close friends.
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This comes at an exciting time when love for literature, particularly in the local scene, is rekindled. The National Book Development Board’s most recent survey states that 77 per cent of reader-respondents have read a printed book in the past years. A finding from Picodi, a global e-commerce platform, supports this fact, noting that 69 per cent of respondents bought at least one book in the past year. “People seem to be reading a lot more literature now. So it’s a perfect moment we’re coming into,” says Coson.
The future might seem bright for literature in general, but Filipino authors and their books continue to experience the same problems that have hounded the publishing industry for years. According to Don Jaucian, Exploding Galaxies editor, many Filipino books don’t get a second life. “Maybe you get two or three more reprints depending on your print run. But other than that, many books remain in our literary consciousness for only a few years, and some books deserve much more than that.”
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Above Nolledo's But for the Lovers book cover (Photo courtesy of Exploding Galaxies press)
Above Alfrido Nolledo (Photo courtesy of Exploding Galaxies press)
Nolledo's But for the Lovers book cover (Photo courtesy of Exploding Galaxies press)
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The editor says that Nolledo’s classic novel became “fixed at the periphery, never fully entering the centre” due to inaccessibility. This particular hurdle is not exclusive to Nolledo’s works, of course, but for this to have happened to someone of his stature only speaks of the gravity at which institutional ills have crippled the industry. So, reprinting such a masterful work is not only an important task, but necessary one to facilitate its reintroduction in a different context and to a larger readership.
While Philippine literature boasts a great list of writers and their works, it was But for the Lovers that compelled Coson’s urgent publishing. She admits that as an independent publisher, the selection process was quite simple: the titles chosen must be compelling enough that the publishing house is left without a choice but to publish them. “It’s taken fifty years for us to get a Philippine edition of But for the Lovers—without question one of our greatest novels,” she says. “We should be familiar with Nolledo and [that], fingers crossed, through this edition, many will read and start to appreciate his writing.”
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When Jio is not creating content for Tatler Philippines' social media channels or covering style-related stories, he's probably binge-watching David Attenborough-narrated documentaries or nursing his vintage shopping fixation. He plans on using fashion criticism as a force for good. Follow him @hijowho or send him an email at jio@tatlerphilippines.com.
