Dia del Libro gesture of offering a rose at the registration table. Foreground are books in Spanish one can pick from
Text and photos by Elizabeth Lolarga
“Estoy arruinado” in Spanish says it better than “I am broke.” This after a half day spent at the annual Dia del Libro on April 26, a Saturday, at the Ayala Triangle Gardens.
I came determined to stay within a budget. There was a spring to my walk as I headed to the registration table of Instituto Cervantes where I signed up to join the physical (in Makati and Intramuros) and online libraries.
With the membership fee came a choice of a free mug (yes to another coffee mug for husband Rolly waiting in Baguio) or a black t-shirt, a free book (I chose an illustrated children’s title El caso del misterio de los pepinos by Joachim Friedrich), a red rose and bookmarks with this quotation from poet Pedro Salinas: “No rechaces los sueños por ser sueños. / Todos los sueños pueden / ser realidad, si el sueño no se acaba (Don’t reject dreams for being dreams. All dreams can come true, if the dream doesn’t end).” Told ya it reads better in Spanish with only the 12 units in college I had in that foreign tongue.
Fiction titles from Milflores Publishing
I made the Milflores Publishing booth my first of several stops on seeing the familiar face of Jo Pantorillo, formerly of Anvil. Right there my pre-determined budget got slowly compromised, necessitating a run to the nearest ATM; I didn’t have a GCash account nor was the WiFi strong enough to allow for use of a debit card. With perang pinaghirapan (hard-earned money) on hand, I was able to score Isagani R. Cruz’s novel So Heaven, billed as “a riotous, romantic romp in the ideal afterlife of a book lover,” Krie R. Lopez’s novel OHA: A Story Told in One Eternal Second and Marivi Soliven’s scary stories Spooky Mo. Among the freebies were stickers and a bag of popcorn which I said I’d pick up later.
At the next stopover, the Vibal Group Inc., I took remote instructions from Rolly on my phone on what are the new titles available. As I chatted with him, my eyes fell on El Periodismo Filipino 1811-1910: The First Century of Philippine Journalism. He said, “That’s an expensive volume. What other titles are there?” I said, “Let it be my post-Easter gift then!” So along with Harold John L. Fiesta’s first poetry book, Panunumbalik sa Gomorrah, those two were deducted from my debit card.
Members of Circulo Hispanico selling books, postcards, stickers, pins, among others
UP Press poetry title celebrating cats and the street of Maginhawa in Quezon City
Third stop: the booth of Circulo Hispanico, an organization based at the University of the Philippines Diliman established “to cultivate (students’) interest in the Spanish language and Hispanic culture by promoting the Filipino-Hispanic heritage through its activities.” UP Press books were consigned to them for that day, and the org earned a percentage from the sales. My handpicked choice was Arvin Abejo Mangohig’s The Lost Cats of Maginhawa: Poetry from Filipino Suburbia. Apart from the poems, what caught my eye were the black and white illustrations of Sarah Redor that seemed to hark back to women depicted in the ads of the 1950s.
Alice M. Sun-Cua signing a book
What should have been my only stop, as I earlier vowed to my husband, was John Iremil Teodoro’s (a.k.a. Panay Sirena’s) Sirena Books booth where I bought Alice M. Sun-Cua’s personal essays Iloilo on My Mind. The author was present to inscribe my copy and receive my gift to her—postcards featuring my paintings.
Her fellow author Criselda Yabes described Sun-Cua, a medical doctor who writes, as having “crafted an emotional garden of her childhood memories when learning to write cursive brought out the best of her: having pen pals that seemed a lot more wholesome than having friends on today’s Facebook; receiving love from her mother who guided her, precisely, into writing.”
As I write this, Rolly had already finished reading Iloilo on My Mind and made his fearless forecast that it would win the National Book Award for either best memoir or best essay collection. We have been the author’s admirers of her travel narratives through the years.
From prose Sun-Cua shifts effortlessly to poetry in the anthology Writing from Home: Endless Black Ink on Rice Paper which she compiled and co-edited with Isidoro M. Cruz. The title is derived from Sun-Cua’s poem “Absence IX” and which appears on the dedicatory page:
Daunted by your absence, Father,
I stand before your grave,
the breeze awakens yearnings
for childhood calligraphy lessons
endless in black ink on rice paper.
I decided to cross to the other booths spread out in the garden and stopped at Ortigas Foundation Library, a nonprofit, where I found Rolly’s desired Dauntless by Marie Silva Vallejo. He had been of late fascinated with World War II history, particularly the Japanese Occupation, and Vallejo’s book was about how the first and second Filipino Infantry Regiments “fought to free the Philippines” with help from “a secret group (that) returned before the Allies.”
Katrina Stuart Santiago holding a copy of her book Of Love and Other Lemons
Found at Everything’s Fine
Penultimate stop was at Katrina Stuart Santiago’s Everything’s Fine, an indie press and bookshop. It also has a gallery at its Prince Tower address on Tordesillas Street, Makati. Apart from the tarp proclaiming its name, there was a Free Palestine sympathy flag. This was where I realized that I was going through a manic moment as I sought to satiate a bottomless hunger for titles such as Zea Asis’ essays in Strange Intimacies, Paolo Manalo’s poems in Happily Ever Ek-ek, Ed Atkins’ Old Food and Sina Queyras’ Rooms: Women, Writing, Woolf.
The salesgirl was worried as I juggled cash on hand with what was in my debit card. She assured me that even she would buy or order titles for the shop and pay through her nose for her heart’s desire. She wound a sampaguita bracelet ’round my wrist, a nice departure from the rose that was handed out from other booths for every purchase. I said my goodbyes to Katrina with a promise to meet her deadline, and I swung by Milflores to get the popcorn.
I hurried out of the place, not looking back anymore, and hailed a passing cab. To the cabbie I handed the bag of popcorn (it was almost noon), gave my home address in the city and sighed once I reached the threshold of somewhere safe, far from the bibliophile’s marketplace.
My consolation was the money went to books, not jewelry, makeup or new threads. I missed Dia’s other offerings like the free flamenco show in the evening and chatting up with author acquaintances. This was as it should be though only a madwoman like me is capable of a day’s splurge.
