Lit Out Loud: 1st Manila International Literary Festival

What's in a name? This is a question I couldn't stop thinking about while attending the first Manila International Literary Festival (MILF). Obsessing over a title may seem like a waste of time, but it's exactly the sort of thing someone attending a literary festival is inclined to do. After all, this sort of event is targeted toward readers and writers. More often than not, in the local literary scene, the readers are also the writers. So it wasn't surprising to find that the people who attended were either former classmates in Creative Writing, English Studies or Comparative Literature, or former professors in the same subject. In the ladies room where girls stayed longer than necessary, talking to their reflections in the mirror, the discussion was on which course they took under the current speaker, not where they got their cute shoes. Truth be told, I'm not sure what girls usually talk about in bathrooms, but I'm pretty sure it isn't writing courses. But this was special, this was the first MILF. Despite the awkward acronym (I wondered if the organizers hadn't seen American Pie), I was in heaven. I was certain that I could probably sit beside any stranger and end up having a stimulating conversation, not that there was much time to converse with seatmates. The three-day festival was packed with sessions, and deciding which to attend made me feel like a kid in a candy store, with a shoestring budget. Did I want to attend the panel on Intertextuality and Plagiarism or the one on Literary Journalism? Would I rather see Isagani Cruz or Susan Lara moderate? Whose thoughts would be more interesting? Was I asking the right questions? In the end, I decided to attend the afternoon breakout session on Intertextuality and Plagiarism, where Angelo Suarez, Carljoe Javier and Angelo Lacuesta held a friendly debate in the spirit of addressing the question "Is the practice of intertextuality technique a violation of the other artist's copyright?" While the panelists enjoyed their verbal sparring, more than a few people were squirming in their seats, probably dying to join the fray. Typically, when the time came for the open forum, not a lot of people went up to the microphone. The case was similar later in the afternoon, during the panel discussion on Writing the Asian Experience in English. On the panel were Alfred Yuson and guest speaker Vikas Swarup. Most people are familiar with Swarup's novel Q&A, although in its adapted form as the highly acclaimed movie Slumdog Millionaire. Yuson, on the other hand, has authored 22 books and is in the Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature Hall of Fame, apart from holding several other distinctions. Predictably, India and the Philippines have several things in common when it comes to the problem of authenticity when writing in English. The debate over what language writers should write in is by no means new, but from what Swarup shared, it isn't going away either. While there will always be those against writing in English, Swarup argued that in India where there are 23 official languages, he reaches more people by writing in English, which is a common denominator there as it is here. Of course, this assumes that the millions he wants to reach have a literacy level sufficient for them to appreciate his novel, and there is also the matter of affordability, and maybe even more importantly, taste. But these were just my own silent musings on the subject - like everyone else in the room I sat quietly and listened to the speakers. Swarup made an excellent point, saying the real problem is the lack of a culture of translation. "As long as the culture of translation remains in its infancy in India, the Matrbhasa writers will remain marginalized, even though they may write the next Nobel Prize-winning novel. A peacock danced in the jungle, but unless somebody saw it, what's the point? These peacocks are dancing in the jungle, but nobody is seeing them," said Swarup. "Apart from reflecting the Asian experience, writing in English reflects on the Asian experience," said Yuson before moving on to discussing the Filipino experience with English, which "may have been foisted on him, but which he has indeed mastered and made his own." Yuson quoted generously from Gemino H. Abad, who wrote of Fernando M. Maramag's 1912 sonnet Moonlight on Manila Bay - "For all that the poet's language is strictly imitation of English romantic diction, the poet's 'scene so fair' still waves his own soul's flag in the ideological rift... The poet chose moonlight not because it's more romantic, but because as the poem suggests, it is under cover of darkness. More precisely, by duplicity that foreigners wrest our country from us. Perhaps, too, the sonnets line, 'the deep's bare bosom that the breeze molests' hints at sexual violation as a metaphor for colonization.'" "Diasporic Philippine literature in English not only reflects the Asian experience, but reflects on it and induces readers of any country to do the same," Yuson ended. Moderator J. Neil Garcia explained during the open forum that literature in a colonial language passes through three stages. "First is the adopt phase, where you assimilate wholeheartedly Western cultural forms thinking they are universal. And then you go to the adapt phase, which is where you try to nativize these forms, and last phase is adept, where you guiltlessly transform Western forms without even reference to their origin anymore." "The myth of authenticity applies only as far as realism is concerned. And realism is only a mode, it is not reality. It is a construction of reality," he said, adding that one way around the issue of authenticity is to write in a magical, surreal way. Swarup agreed, saying that in India, the biggest boom in publishing now is in the graphic novel. "Words fundamentally are unreliable. What you are trying to convey through the words is a series of emotions, and those emotions by definition sometimes cannot really be conveyed through words," he said. When the audience was asked for questions, no one dared approach the microphone. "It's just like class," my former classmate said to me from across the aisle, and I grinned back in agreement. "I think we've been altogether clear, that's why they aren't asking questions," said J. Neil Garcia, while the audience laughed, a bit nervously. Perhaps. But the MILF is all about asking questions, provoking thought toward what the future could look like for Philippine Literature. Titled LOL: Lit Out Loud, the festival is meant to be a "new window of opportunity for our local writers to learn about standards for international awards and global publishers through the lens of renowned local and foreign novel writers and literary agents," according to Dr. Dennis Gonzalez, chairman of the National Book Development Board. Interaction and learning among peers being the primary objectives of the festival, several speakers were present, both from the local literary industry as well as from other countries. Foreign speakers like children's author Christopher Cheng, freelance journalist and author of the recently published novel The F-Word Mita Kapur, young adult literature author Andy Mulligan, Man Asian Literary Prize Chair Director David Parker and literary agent Jayapriva Vasudevan were present, as well as over 50 local speakers including renowned critic and poet Gemino H. Abad, comic book writer Gerry Alanguilan and National Artist Virgilio Almario. NBDB Executive Director Atty. Andrea Pasion-Flores hopes that "everyone will come out of the festival with the determination to read more, write more and, ultimately, be part of the bigger effort to bring the love of reading to our people." I myself hope the same, but I couldn't help feeling that the entire festival was too far removed from reality. There we were in a five star hotel, sipping coffee from dainty mugs, scribbling notes with our elbows resting on the pristine table cloth. I was certain that beyond the glass doors, millions of people couldn't care less about the state of our literature. The fact that many of our published novels are about love or nation (or both) wouldn't be significant to most people who weren't attending the festival. And then I realized that probably wasn't the point. The festival was meant to attract people who wrote - the writers, not the readers, or non-readers as the case is more likely to be. As Jose Y. Dalisay expressed in his keynote speech, it is time for Filipino writers to think about their audience. Instead of sticking to the usual themes, why not look at what works and begin there? - GMANews.TV