“It seeks to promote the development of the book publishing industry and be the catalyst for building a culture of reading and authorship.”
Last November 7, 2024, the National Book Development Board (NBDB) and the Manila Critics Circle (MCC) announced the winners of the 42nd National Book Awards (NBA).
The NBA is consistent with the mission of the NBDB to promote the development of the book publishing industry and be the catalyst for building a culture of reading and authorship as well as an environment for the growth of the book publishing industry towards making it globally competitive.
The MCC, on the other hand, was founded in 1981 when Ophelia Alcantara Dimalanta, Alfredo Navarro Salanga, Alfred A. Yuson, and Isagani R. Cruz realized that Philippine books were not getting the attention they deserved. It was the MCC that initiated the NBA.
The present set of MCC members are Dean Francis Alfar (Chair), Shirley O. Lua (Vice-Chair), Alma Anonas-Carpio, Michael Coroza, and myself. Jenny Ortuoste, who passed on last July 21, 2024, continued to participate in this 42nd cycle of choosing the NBA finalists and winners until her health no longer allowed her to join our meetings.
We miss Jenny’s gentle and wise voice in our final deliberations but we knew that her spirit was with us.
As a member of the MCC, I would like to share some information on how we select the finalists and winners of this annual prize that honors the most outstanding book titles written, designed, and published in the Philippines.
In this cycle, 326 titles were submitted by publishers across 31 categories consisting of four languages: English, Filipino, Bikol, and Ilokano. To qualify, all books must be published for the first time by a Philippine publisher in 2023.
We have a simple criteria for a book to be nominated: its writing must follow the highest standards in terms of mechanics or grammar, copy-editing, the structure of thoughts and ideas, and style. The nominated book should also be significant, which includes an original contribution to its field of study or interest, the accuracy of the data it contains, and reader impact.
In classifying the nominated books, there shall be two divisions: Literary and Non-Literary.
Literary Awards are given to books that contain, or are about, creative writing. These include the following genres: Fiction (Novel and Short Fiction), Nonfiction Prose, Anthology, Film and Drama, Literary Criticism/Cultural Studies, Literary History, Poetry, Graphic Novel and Comics, and Translation into the following languages: (a) English; and b) Filipino.
Non-Literary Awards include books on: Art; Professions; Social Sciences; History; Journalism; Humor, Sports, Lifestyle, and Business; Food; Science; Spirituality and Theology; and Philosophy.
As a special category, books published in Bicolano/Bikolnon within the last three (3) years (2021-2023) were considered for this year’s awards.
One of the most prestigious awards in the NBA is for Book Design. The overall design of a book, including but not limited to the cover design, the choice of typefaces, the dimensions of the page, the layout, the type of paper, the binding, and the printing are the prime considerations in this category. Under this category, a nominated book combines all the elements of design into a coherent whole, supplementing, but not supplanting, the content of the book. A winning book entices the reader to read the contents carefully while admiring the way the book looks.
The Publisher of the Year is a special award given to the publisher who has the highest number of winners across all categories in the National Book Awards.
The process of selecting winners lasts for almost half a year. It begins with a call by the NBDB to publishers to nominate their qualified titles. When the nominations are received, the NBDB and the MCC convene to classify the books into their proper categories. In most cases, we follow the proposed classification of the publisher. But there are books that wereclassify to other categories based on our appreciation of them.
Integral to the process of selecting the winners is inviting external category judges, who are experts, to help us in a two-step process of selecting finalists and winners.
We conduct two deliberations.
In the first, the Board of Judges (the MCC plus the category Judges) select no more than five titles as finalists per category. We decide by consensus but, if necessary, we take a vote and finalists are decided by a majority vote.
In the second deliberation, the Board of Judges selects one winner from the roster of finalists. We require each Judge to explain his or her vote. Again, the choice of winners shall be by a majority vote.
The 42nd NBA coincides with the preparation of the Philippines as it makes history as the second Southeast Asian country to be chosen as Guest of Honour in 2025 at the world’s biggest book fair, the Frankfurter Buchmesse.
In 1981, when the National Book Awards were first given out, there were very few quality books being published in the Philippines. Today, as we said last year in the NBA program, “hundreds of Philippine books are marvelously written, beautifully designed, professionally published, and widely read. These are the treasures yielded by our patrimony of letters.”
This is why current members of the Manila Critics Circle have decided to reorganize and establish a new organization – the Filipino Critics Circle – which will continue to partner with the NBDB for the National Book Awards. This decision reflects the growing diversity of the publishing industry in the Philippines, including the participation in the NBA of many independent and regional publishers. Responding to this, the new organization will recruit new members who will reflect this diversity. That includes inviting more social scientists, as I am the only one now in the group, and more members from Mindanao and the Visayas.
