Category: literati

PEN america & charlie hebdo

i follow two famous novelists on twitter  — joyce carol oates (them, Blonde) and salman rushdie (Satanic VersesThe Ground Beneath Her Feet) — and it’s been interesting to find them on opposite sides of the argument re whether or not charlie hebdo deserves PEN’s prestigious freedom-of-expression courage award.  rushdie was rather pompous and sexist and brooked no argument.

@SalmanRushdie
The award will be given. PEN is holding firm. Just 6 pussies. Six Authors in Search of a bit of Character.

oates, among the 200 or so who boycotted the gala in protest, didn’t bite, instead was self-reflexively ironic.

@JoyceCarolOates
Exciting to witness a conflict in which each side is “holier than thou.”

and then i ran into this piece by glenn greenwald (of snowden fame) siding with the protesters, that led to another page where he posted the exchange of letters between deborah eisenberg and PEN’s executive director suzanne nossel that sparked the controversy.

sharing this, from eisenberg (Twilight of the Superheroes):

… Satire might be thought of as sort of a free zone, where potentially dangerous or destabilizing ideas can be safely sent out to play, or to perform for us, and social inequities are implicitly an element in most satire – though it is the parties thought to be holding disproportionate power or prestige who are the usual object of successful satire. It seems to me that power and prestige are elements that must be recognized in considering almost any form of discourse, including satire, and that to ignore very real inequities between the person holding the mighty pen and the subject fixed on paper by that pen, risks making empty and self-serving nonsense of the discussion. In any case, your apparent assumption that I fail to recognize the value of satire is puzzling, given that I made liberal use of it in my letter of March 26.

… It is the work available to us, not the objectives behind it, which we experience and judge. If, for example, I read a book that strikes me as worthless, my opinion of it will not go up simply because the author tells me that she had wanted it to be better than War and Peace. And further, the subjects of a satire are bound to have a different relationship to that satire than those who are only peripherally involved or who have the same set of cultural assumptions as the satire’s author. The Muslim population of France, so much of which feels despised and out of place in their own home, is very aware that the non-Muslim population of France is reading and enjoying mockery of their religion, and they are very unlikely to care what objectives Charlie Hebdo ascribes to itself, however lofty those objectives may be. A person wounded by ridicule is unlikely to much care what the ridiculer intended – to care whether the goal of the ridicule was to stimulate insight or to inflict humiliation.

But presumably the PEN/Toni and James C. Goodale Freedom of Expression Courage Award is being awarded to Charlie Hebdo for its actual publications, not for its stated aspirations. So those aspirations are as immaterial to PEN’s choice as they are irrelevant to the Muslim population of France. What actually matters most in this instance, in my opinion, is what people believe is being awarded: What does PEN wish to convey by presenting this prestigious award to Charlie Hebdo? And that is still not one bit clear to me.

Charlie Hebdo is undeniably courageous in that it has continued irrepressibly to ridicule Islam and its adherents, who include a conspicuously and ruthlessly dangerous faction. But ridicule of Islam and Muslims cannot in itself be considered courageous at this moment, because ridicule of Islam and Muslims is now increasingly considered acceptable in the West. However its staff and friends see it, Charlie Hebdo could well be providing many, many people with an opportunity to comfortably assume a position that they were formerly ashamed to admit. This is not a voice of dissent, this is the voice of a mob.

Here I am, piping up again, and re-stating some of the things I’ve already said. And how good it would be if you and I could sort out and settle all these issues and those that are attached to them in the exchange of a few letters! But obviously these matters are not easily sorted out, let alone settled – and they are not easily discussed, either. They do, however, call for discussion – for examination, for re-examination, for endless, painstaking vigilance and continual efforts at clear thinking.

You seek to persuade me that Charlie Hebdo was a judicious choice to receive the PEN/Toni and James C. Goodale Freedom of Expression Courage Award by telling me people are flocking to join PEN because of its support for Charlie Hebdo – but that only redoubles the anxieties I described in my first letter. I can only wonder what exactly is so alluring to these new dues-payers: are they indeed demonstrating enthusiasm for PEN’s long-standing support of free and courageous expression, or are they demonstrating enthusiasm for a license that is being offered by PEN to openly rally behind a popular prejudice that has suddenly been legitimized and made palatable by the January atrocities?

In short, it is not Charlie Hebdo I’m writing to you about, it is PEN. I would be very sorry if this essential organization were to alter radically in character, from one that supports and protects endangered voices of dissent to one that encourages voices of intolerance.

and this, from garry trudeau (Doonesbury):

… Ironically, Charlie Hebdo, which always maintained it was attacking Islamic fanatics, not the general population, has succeeded in provoking many Muslims throughout France to make common cause with its most violent outliers. This is a bitter harvest.

Traditionally, satire has comforted the afflicted while afflicting the comfortable. Satire punches up, against authority of all kinds, the little guy against the powerful. Great French satirists like Molière and Daumier always punched up, holding up the self-satisfied and hypocritical to ridicule. Ridiculing the non-privileged is almost never funny—it’s just mean.

By punching downward, by attacking a powerless, disenfranchised minority with crude, vulgar drawings closer to graffiti than cartoons, Charlie wandered into the realm of hate speech, which in France is only illegal if it directly incites violence. Well, voila—the 7 million copies that were published following the killings did exactly that, triggering violent protests across the Muslim world, including one in Niger, in which ten people died. Meanwhile, the French government kept busy rounding up and arresting over 100 Muslims who had foolishly used their freedom of speech to express their support of the attacks.

The White House took a lot of hits for not sending a high-level representative to the pro-Charlie solidarity march, but that oversight is now starting to look smart. The French tradition of free expression is too full of contradictions to fully embrace. Even Charlie Hebdo once fired a writer for not retracting an anti-Semitic column. Apparently he crossed some red line that was in place for one minority but not another.

What free speech absolutists have failed to acknowledge is that because one has the right to offend a group does not mean that one must. Or that that group gives up the right to be outraged. They’re allowed to feel pain. Freedom should always be discussed within the context of responsibility. At some point free expression absolutism becomes childish and unserious. It becomes its own kind of fanaticism.

*

Why I Won’t Be Attending the PEN Galapalooza

adam, ishmael, BBL

had to make a trip to tiaong to pay ameliar — medyo late, so merong penalty, but also got to pay 3 years in advance with a nice discount — and stayed on in the elias house for some days.

it’s been good, this distance from the literary soap opera unfolding, of adam david”s reluctant david to anvil’s glowering goliath.  read adam’s side here: http://himaamsir.blogspot.com/.  it would be good to hear, too, from anvil publishing and the two writers, i.e., the complainants/ editors of the anthology Fast Food Fiction Delivery that adam played around with via a randomizer in the spirit of literary criticism.  who would have thought anvil et al could would be so displeased, get so pikon, as though there were no other way to take it, except as an affront, when in fact it raised positive interest in the book — i wanted to get me a copy, see for myself what is fast food about it ba talaga and what the short short stories (around 500 words) of literary fat cats are like.  

the even bigger surprise was, is, the reaction when adam simply took down the website on the dictated day rather than contend with a costly lawsuit: tila na-disappoint ang literary establishment — man up daw!  tila they were really just raring to fight adam in a court of law, and no where else, i guess because in a free and intelligent and sophisticated (as opposed to sophomoric) debate, baka wala silang panalo?  worse, kami raw na pumirma sa statement of support for adam ay mga did-not-know-what-we-were-doing sort of people.  grabe naman.

disclosure:  adam designed my book revo routes, including the maps;  i’ve since come to know him  better through his works posted online.  in his place, i would have taken down the website, too.  who needs the extra aggravation.  ang pikon, talo.

the distance has also been good for my bernal book project.  given minimal distractions —  spotty internet connection and no cable TV in the dining room where  i’m set up with laptop and wifi — i have finally finished a rough timeline of the life and films of national artist ishmael bernal based on clippings of feature articles and movie reviews published from the early 1970s to his death in 1996, clippings contained in huge albums that ishmael himself, and then jorge arago, kept updated, including the goodbyes and eulogies from june to december ’96.  some 200 pieces, along with ishma’s journal and transcripts of taped conversations, that i encoded in the summer of 2012 at the height of my grief over jorge.  next, i  prepare for interviews with some of his  family,  friends, and colleagues, hopefully to fill in the blanks and flesh out the curves.  work in progress, with quite a way to go.

distance notwithstanding, caught snatches of the house of reps’ BBL hearing graced by the president’s peace corps of elderlies and not-so-elderlies.   clearly the hope is that an acceptable BBL will be passed maybe in a couple of months or so, in time for the october filing of candidacy for the 2016 election of bangsamoro officials.   clearly there will be no proper transition period to prepare the bangsamoros to govern themselves. in 2010 the MILF said that upon the enactment of a law creating the bangsamoro autonomous region, they would need a 7-year interim period  to  prepare for a plebiscite, and then for the 2016 elections and self-government.   the palace said  a 6-year interim would do, obviously expecting that a comprehensive agreement and then a bangsamoro law could be churned out in a jiffy.  LOL.  no one foresaw that the president’s best efforts would come to this.  mamasapano aside, a railroaded BBL in the offing, and no transition period to speak of — is there even time for a credible plebiscite?  recipe for disaster.  what else is new.

meanwhile, commiserating with mary jane…

nita herrera-umali berthelsen (1923-2014)

she was my mother‘s youngest sister, the writer i wanted to be like when i grew up.  sharing here an essay she wrote sometime around independence day the 4th of july 1946.  little more than four years later her eldest brother narciso, congressman of quezon province, was falsely accused of and jailed for murder and communist-coddling, this in the time of the huks and lansdale and magsaysay, in aid of increased military aid from america.  it was like tia nita had sadly seen into a troubled future a country still in the shadow of the stars and stripes.

JUST WHERE ARE WE?
Nita H. Umali

–And of course the proper answer, the one I should quite emphatically give myself, would be, “Why, stupid, it is almost dawn, the light is seeping in! A new day is being born. Why do you close your eyes to it? And why do you turn your back to the sun?” Maybe it is because I am nearsighted, physically and otherwise, and I am afraid of dazzling glares, and because emotionally I am not looking through rose-colored glasses.

This, of course, is striking a discordant note somewhere, and at such a time as this is very improper. I just hope that on the very day of July four the afternoon mist is here to make me realize that all are not sharp angles, except in my noonday imaginations.

Yes, freedom is here and hundreds of years ago they started to gather the bricks for the stronghold that we have today. Women in long, swishing skirts and upswept hair, going to Church in slipper-shod feet, whispering to God that their men should be saved. Mangled bodies and wet blood smelted and the foundation laid. Time went on, and the materials for building were not so dearly priced, until a few years ago, the iron yoke was laid on our backs. Once more, women, now in short skirts, their wooden shoes punctuating the hush in the chapel, asked from God. Not whispered prayers, but in silent supplication, because spoken words were so dangerous. Maimed limbs, numb minds, and closed mouths. The flame of the blood red sun trying to engulf them, and the blood of past ages and the present day flowing by their feet, urging them on, to fight for freedom, for the greater glory.

And now we shall get it. By a piece of paper, signed and sealed, everything will be different. Or will it? Will there be a change in us as we go to class, or walk the streets? Will our way of thinking, our mode of reasoning, alter? Will our country, with all its men and women, its strong-willed leaders, its weak officials, its priests, and lawyers and doctors, its teachers and bandits, its carefree youths and discontented peasants, its beggars and criminals, will she, the Philippines, with her tropic skies and lazy palms, that small group of islands, after long years of restfully reclining on the solid hunk that is America, will she learn to stand erect, unsupported, even on a pair of wobbly feet?

We have what we want, what every other dependent nation has long wanted — we have it in our hands; shall we let it slip away? Will the four freedoms that we have fought for, will it, be just a mockery to what we are? The present dust of Manila is in our eyes, and the dust of the world in our consciousness. The way is dim and shadowy, and though now and then there are erratic shafts of light, still the sudden brightness of tomorrow may blind us.

Faith, hope, and love, those age old standards, these are the sole supports we have, the beacons that are here to guide us, as we leave the protecting shadows of the stars and stripes, and venture forth into a new life that is but a continuity to the old.

the clipping is posted on her facebook page managed by daughter karen. https://www.facebook.com/nitaumaliberthelsen

The Manila Review interviews Katrina Stuart Santiago

Last April, literary critic and essayist Katrina Stuart Santiago wrote a controversial polemic about patronage and cliquishness in the Philippine writing establishment. MR editors Caroline S. Hau (CSH) and Miguel Syjuco (MS) probe deeper.

by CAROLINE S. HAU AND MIGUEL SYJUCO

CSH: Your article, “Burn After Reading” (Rogue Magazine, April 13, 2012, http://www.facebook.com/notes/rogue-magazine/burn-after-reading-by-katrina-stuart-santiago/10150634614127109) is critical of the “us-vs-them” cliquishness of the Philippine writing establishment. You talk about “an unspoken/unconscious/unexplained set of rules” for gaining entry into the writing community, rules that you say have nothing to do with literary merit. What are these rules? 

The rule of respecting your elders. Which is equated with refusing to question their scholarship, or critiquing their body of work. Seniority comes into play, big time, and you realize that articulating even in the most scholarly of ways, or in the kindest of ways, your disagreement will not be taken at face value, and will instead be taken as an affront to the elders’ sense of their place in the establishment. Criticism, even when it comes in the form of writing differently, doesn’t only paint you as disrespectful, it also makes you an enemy.

The rule of utang na loob. The poet who first gave you a writing gig, the teacher who gave you work as a student, the one who takes pride in having read your work first, the one who has no qualms about saying that he/she was the judge when you won a prize. These relationships are weightier than the task of writing and creativity.

The rule of knowing your place. You choose whose work you do critical assessments of, you demand little of your elders in the establishment. For me this place was also one that told me I wasn’t allowed to do the critical work I wanted to do within the academe, because that would mean risking career and friendships within it. It’s a place of silence, a rule of silence, too.

CSH: You identify a “shameless alaga system versus real mentorship” as one of the institutional hallmarks of a corrupt literary system. How do you distinguish between the two?

The alaga system shouldn’t be and isn’t a problem in and by itself – we all play favorites after all – it’s the manner in which the young and new writer is made into the elder, it’s when there’s a sense of crowns being handed down (how gay is that, haha!), of the elder anointing the younger ones, that it becomes suspicious if not problematic.

Mentorship on the other hand, and as I’ve seen it happen in these shores too, is a more professional relationship, where you seek the help of an elder, where you allow for a writer or critic you respect to look at your work and ask that they give honest comments. Mentorship is not about pleasing the mentor, but about the mentee being allowed to decide for herself the direction that she might take given the criticism of her work. The mentor critiques the work of another without imposing her own ways of doing things, her own ideologies; nor would the mentor take it personally if and when the mentee refuses to revise as per her advice. In this sense, the mentor respects the independence of the mentee, and values this as much as her own. In this sense, the mentee need not feel indebted to the mentor.

CSH: What kind of impact has this cliquishness had on Philippine literature in general, and on the careers of aspiring young writers in particular?

Cliquishness within any creative enterprise, we’d like to think, is default, it’s something that cannot be helped. But when this creative institution becomes a clique all its own, when one can look at a writing establishment and see the ties that bind each and everyone within it to each other, and how much of it is personal, what happens to creativity and the task of writing then?

For a student of literature in the University of the Philippines, it meant becoming their student assistant, it meant dreaming of becoming part of the academe so as to sustain these relationships. It also meant toning down what I had to say, or being more careful about what I wrote, or keeping “secrets” of canon formation that I had become privy to. Without thinking, these personal relationships came into play as I sat down and tried to write an essay. When I was writing that essay that later won the Palanca Award, it was a very conscious effort at writing the way creative non-fiction is written in these shores. My particular rebellion was my insistence on talking about activism, about the woman factory worker, but I knew, I consciously ended with, this task of reflecting about my difference from them, which is always always in the creative non-fiction that’s published here.

I’d like to think that it is this exercise in keeping the establishment happy while flexing one’s creative muscles that might point to impact.

MS: Language, authenticity, relevance, and audience are issues regularly mentioned when examining Philippine literature. These often seem to be wielded as preferential or exclusionary tactics, meant to narrowly define what our literature should and shouldn’t be. Isn’t this tendency toward the monolithic just an extension of the us-versus-them mentality you criticize? Shouldn’t we (in our multi-lingual, multi-cultural country) want to see many writers, in different languages and dialects, from diverse backgrounds, working in different styles, with differing philosophies regarding art and social engagement?

That the literary scene might be informed by divisions in language, differences in audience and ideological leanings is to me secondary. Regionalism is already a crisis that the us-versus-them mentality doesn’t acknowledge to begin with, maybe something that’s seen as irresolvable, given geography. I don’t think it’s the responsibility of the writings from the regions to come to Manila, and become part of the institutions and literati here; it is Manila and the literati here that should engage with the regions, not just selling their books elsewhere or doing workshops and such, but looking at the writing from the regions and engaging with the audience these have. Of course this also means having to deal with forms and writing that are totally different from what’s acceptable in Manila.

MS: You say that the literati don’t “care” about broader readers. However, if a writer were to adjust to the public’s reading tastes, she or he could also be accused of pandering. Should we ever be writing for anyone particular, or should we all perhaps just be writing, so that one will appeal to certain readers while others appeal to other readers, thus cultivating a polyphonous literature?

When I say that they don’t care, I mean that there is a tendency to look to a very limited set of people for readership: students for one, because they are held captive by the syllabi of their teachers (who are the writers and members of the literati, too); themselves for another, the small circle of writer friends, whose approval of their work is enough. I don’t know that this is a question of writing for a particular audience as it a question of whether or not we dare engage a bigger audience. It’s a question of whether or not we are willing to evolve in our writing, versus churning out the same things in book after book.

There are the literati and their writing, and there’s the rest of us outside of it. The diversity exists, but it is because of those who demand of themselves as writers to do better, and engage if not create new readers in the process.

MS: When one criticizes another for not doing enough through their work (which is what your Rogue article seems to do), that seems to be a part of our shared frustration that our country (and its components, including literature) can’t escape its inertia. While that criticism may be understandable, is that really helpful or fair in regards to literature, given that we each have our roles? Or is it just another example (as seen repeatedly in politics) of us waiting for a messiah to revolutionize, represent, or inspire us forward?

The premise of a question like this is that no one is outside the literary and academic system. But “Burn After Reading”, at its core, was saying that the messiahs are here, and they are not within the house that literature built. Certainly, there will be brilliant writers who will be born into that house of literature, but anyone worth his or her creative salt will get to the point of self-reflexivity, when it becomes obvious that the people who inhabit the institutions of literature are ultimately the same people, if not people who think the same way. “Burn” was about telling that person that it’s okay to step out of that zone and listen to other people outside of it, the “them” that the powerful “us” ignores or lambasts in equal turns. There is life outside of the literati and the academe, there is writing to be done elsewhere.

Was it helpful or fair to critique the systemic decay in the institutionalized but silent practices in literary production and writing? I would think so. It is no different from talking about corruption in government, except that the latter is national, and the literati and academe are a very very small world that keeps to itself.

MS: You criticize the inclination to want to be published in America. This seems to come from a postcolonial idea that is arguably becoming obsolete as the world is more globalized and Filipinos expand our diaspora. It implies there’s something wrong with a Filipino wanting to be read simultaneously at home and abroad. This, however, is curiously mostly a criticism in literature, because in business, sports, performing arts, and other fields we see both a reasonable pragmatism in succeeding in the wider world and a pride in those who do. Since the Filipino experience is now a global one, shouldn’t our literature be one that embraces the diaspora and the world beyond our shores?

Actually, it wasn’t the desire to be published in America per se, but the fact of pretending that we aren’t writing for America. And this isn’t a petty “why are you writing in English?” question. It is an inquiry into why exactly we would rather not take on the challenge of getting wider readership in the Philippines at the same time that we sustain whatever American/international dream there is. The premise is that there are more readers here than the literati and academe admit, but the decision is to look only at that classroom and each other and elsewhere. And the question is “why?”

This is obviously different from writing from/in the Filipino diaspora, different from Fil-Am writing, different from migrant literature à la Carlos Bulosan, or OFW testimonials.

CSH: You talk about the penalties that writers pay for being critical of writers’ works. You wrote: “It doesn’t

matter that you talk about the work and not the people; the work is the person who wrote it, and these writers have built this house.” Why do you think it is very difficult to separate the writer from his or her work or the critic from what she or he is criticizing?

Because the tendency – if not the rule – is to hold our works so close to our hearts that we never let it go, that we insist on explaining what our works mean, that we end up talking to each other about our work, and writing about each other’s works, too. By the time a work for example is published, or appears in an anthology or as a book, it might have gone through workshops already, if not one-on-one reading sessions with the writing elders. The tendency as such is to feel entitled to this place of being writer, the work as part of the canon, and any criticism (post-publication) of the work is seen as a critique of the validity of these italicized and highly questionable concepts.

The critic from what she is criticizing is an interesting animal in itself, because where the literary text one produces might allow for distance – you can say it’s a work of fiction, you can say it’s not about you – the critic is in her critical stance. Do I imagine a separation between the critic and what she is criticizing? Not at all. Any critic worth her salt would at least know the text she’s criticizing like the back of her hand, or at least have a sense of the angles that she’s missed if only so she can respond when she is questioned or attacked for her opinion. When your textual output is opinion, when your literary work (so to speak) is the critical essay, you live off the lack of separation. And you admit that yes, everything is personal, in so far as you choose to write about the things you do, and you are affected by these texts whether positively or negatively, and you have no other way to explain how you feel but through words.

MS: The younger, marginalized, and unappreciated writers you refer to in your piece may likely one day get published, achieve tenure, have kids to support, lean on literary styles they try to perfect, and become part of the establishment. Isn’t what you criticize just part of a timeless cycle? Will rejecting the establishment now really open up writing and reading later?

Certainly, if this rejection of the establishment was all hot air. But the ideological underpinnings – at least for me – are clearly about the systemic dysfunction of this house’s existence. This question is also premised on the assumption of a lack of anything worthwhile to do that will be financially viable, outside of the house of literature and the academe– an assumption which is just not true. “Burn After Reading” was pointing out that there’s plenty to do elsewhere, so we will always have the choice not to go back to that house.

CSH:  You have been involved in some debates that have arisen in reaction to your essay, which was reprinted in Facebook. Some of your readers have recounted their first-hand encounters with the abuses of the system of literary barkada and alaga. Others have commented that, instead of writing about the maladies of the system, you are better off concentrating on the task of writing itself. Still others have commented on the tone—the “anger” and “bitterness”–of your essay. How do you respond to these comments?

With regard to the maladies of the system versus the task of writing itself, I do wonder why these are seen as mutually exclusive. The task of writing happens within|against|beyond this system, and as such it is its responsibility to itself to speak of the system’s maladies. Every writing that happens in this country is a symptom of the system, with all the good and bad that’s there. To imagine that there is even the task of writing in itself, extraneous to the systemic ails of the writing establishment is to think words might happen in a vacuum, that books are published from out of nowhere, that we might be removed from context is to me problematic, if not altogether false.

In the interest of full disclosure, “Burn After Reading” was something that Rogue asked me write. And no, this request didn’t happen in a vacuum either: in November 2011 I attended the Manila International Literary Festival (yes, the MILF), and did a review of it for GMA News Online. Rogue’s editors read that, and asked me to write on the literary scene. It was of course a level-up, a challenge, one that I couldn’t refuse, but also something that I knew would be difficult: the patronage-alaga-academic-utang-na-loob-system is in my blood after all, and all those things came into play as I sat down to write what later became “Burn After Reading.”

This is crucial to the comment that I should write instead of critiquing the system: certainly the decision to say yes to Rogue was mine, but the idea was all theirs. Imagine me calling their bluff, or just taking on the challenge.

I thought here was something worth talking about, not to destroy anyone’s credibility (I don’t name names after all), but more than that to tell the universe of writers, aspiring and otherwise, to forge through and find that there are many ways to be writer in these shores. Many many other ways that are not the way of the mainstream, or the establishment, or of patronage.

The anger and bitterness is a reading that I accept. It was certainly not the intention, though intent as far as I’m concerned is irrelevant. I wrote that piece and let it go, as I do all the things I write. It is enough that to me it was a break-up letter long in coming, because I stayed in a bad relationship for far too long. That I stand by it goes without saying.

CSH: In follow-up posts, you identify alternative modes of publishing—independent presses, the internet—and criticism, mostly undertaken by young writers, that provide venues for debates and mentorship beyond the reach of the literary establishment. Do you think these alternative modes represent the future of Philippine creative writing, outside of the usual institutional settings for discussing and validating literature offered by workshops, literary contests, university and commercial presses, and academia? 

I’m no expert on the independent publishing sphere, in fact more of a newbie swimming in all the locally and independently produced comics and books that in the early part of this year I began to be more exposed to. I like that when I read other people’s work, independently published, I am forced to question my own notions of literature and writing and creativity. I like that I am surprised by the kind of writing that happens beyond the establishment. I like that I am forced to question my own limitations when it comes to reading poetry and fiction and the essay as I know them. I like that my notions of what is literary are challenged by comic books independently published.

Do these “alternative” independent modes of production spell the future of literature in this country? I certainly hope not, if only because I see “the future of literature” to be controlled by the mainstream and the establishment that will write official literary histories and hold events that will necessarily exclude most of us. I’d like to think that the independent publisher and writer would rather not go the way of the mainstream anymore, but imagines a peaceful co-existence, ideally one that means engaging in intelligent discourse, too. There is no romanticizing of the indie here, as there is the task of getting these works into the hands of more people, and getting more readers for them because the indie is – can be – a wonderful counterpoint to the mainstream.

MS: You’ve already discussed, here and elsewhere, various issues that you find problematic in Philippine literature and publishing. You’ve spoken about what you deem wrong. Can you now explain how you’d ideally like to see the culture of reading and writing? In other words, can you attempt to give us something of a manifesto?

In place of a manifesto, and versus talking about an ideal, maybe some of the things we can already do right now for Philippine writing and literature.

Read beyond what’s on those bookstore shelves and syllabi. There is local writing happening online and independently. Read beyond the forms we call “valid,” because there is a huge indie komiks industry in Manila, visual artists have taken to publishing zines, there’s chick lit, poetry chapbooks, young and new writing, old writers trying new things. Try and read beyond the language that is English, and find that there is Filipino that’s easy to read, that does not alienate.

Write what you want, be open to criticism, know to ignore white noise. If you win a prize, realize it isn’t license to settle for what works; if you don’t win a prize, know it is not a judgment as it is also a matter of luck. Draft your own rules about writing, be conscious of your taste, try and write differently from what you’re used to. Know how to explain yourself.

Demand that institutions of culture take cognizance of the changing landscape of writing and reading, where the publishing house-academe-literati might still have much power, but cannot be the only authority on literary production.

Be critical of people and institutions that tell you of this grand design for literature and writing, and insist on what you should read. Creativity and culture are not written in syllabi or history books or newspaper columns; creativity and culture happen. There is reason to at the very least know of these movements, distinct and separate from the institutional imagination of what should be considered as “culture” or what must be considered as “creative.” There is every reason to think that outside of these institutions is where you will be comfortable, in both the things you read and in your writing.