Exploding Galaxies is on a Quest to Resurrect Filipino Literature

Most books do not live very long lives. We write them, yes, and as writers, we hope that our paperback children go on to have fruitful lives, reaching millions of readers, spreading the joy of literature, and, if we’re extremely lucky, win a Palanca, or a Booker, or the Nobel Prize in Literature. 

But in the Philippines alone, the thousands of books published a year — 10,297 in 2023, according to data from the National Library — do not necessarily equate to thousands of books becoming bestsellers and classics. Instead, they tend to fade away, and without anyone there to play necromancer, these books and their stalwart authors remain lost in their forgotten, obscure graves.

Enter Exploding Galaxies, a bright-eyed publishing house in the business of resurrecting out-of-print books. Since its inception in 2023, the press has pulled two Filipino titles back from oblivion. First was Wilfrido Nolledo’s 1970 World War II magnum opus, But for the Lovers, which had only been available as a U.S. edition. The following year, the press reprinted the challenging work of historical fiction from 1979, The Three-Cornered Sun by Linda Ty-Casper, one of the strongest, if not the most acclaimed, figures in Philippine literature.

Fast forward to 2025, and Exploding Galaxies has only grown more ambitious. Its latest release is Erwin E. Castillo’s outlandish Cavite epic The Firewalkers, in which stories of otherworldly ancestors, child-eating monsters, and cowboys all run amok in the same universe. “If I wrote like other people, I’d shoot myself,” Castillo once said in a 2014 interview (which, funnily enough, was conducted by another well-known Erwin: writer, filmmaker, and art curator Erwin Romulo, who introduces the new edition of The Firewalkers). 

“When [Castillo] speaks, it’s like the air changes. He just has that aura,” said Exploding Galaxies publisher Mara Coson. 

The Criteria for Resurrection

In an interview at the publishing house’s HQ, Coson was joined by managing editor Sam Marcelo and designer Kristian Henson, both of whom were quick to launch into a discussion about the meticulousness of book illustrations, covers, and formats. For her part, Coson showed off the cover studies of The Firewalkers in large curled reams of paper, while organizing copies of old and new projects into a grid atop the office’s main wooden worktable.

“Every new book we publish has its own genesis,” said Coson. With The Firewalkers, the publisher recalled how the road to republishing the 1992 novel had been a fairly straightforward one, thanks to the author’s son, the musician Diego Castillo. “[The Firewalkers] had been sitting there, alone, for the longest time,” said Coson. “There hadn’t been much momentum to really reintroduce it, either. It had been languishing.”

When asked about how they pick what to publish next, members of Exploding Galaxies each have different answers. “The historical significance of a work and the highest caliber in formal writing terms are our two requirements for publishing titles,” noted Nicole CuUnjieng-Aboitiz, the house’s literary and academic advisor, as well as the editor of its publication, e.g. Journal, in an email exchange. 

But for Coson, the criteria are not so cut and dry. “Well, I feel like it always has something to do with this magnetic force that possesses all, or perhaps just me, when I look at a book,” she said. “Like, I just have to do it. There’s a certain urgency that comes from the powers within a book. Some books just call to be published. It’s like magic.”

Marcelo echoed Coson’s sentiment, while also pointing out how Exploding Galaxies tends to favor authors who have lost their footing amongst a generation of new readers. “They feel forgotten and looked over. Like time has passed them by,” 

Coson added, “For me, knowing that new readers can find Nolledo, or Ty-Casper, or Castillo, that’s priceless. It’s also really always been about whether people enjoy the book. Does it turn into someone’s favorite? That’s something I think about more.”

While Coson may speak about the more romantic side of publishing, she isn’t blind to the importance of releasing titles that can attract more readers. After The Firewalkers, Exploding Galaxies is set to release new editions of food and theater critic Doreen Fernandez’s Palayok: Philippine Food through Time, on Site, in the Pot, and Sarap: Essays on Philippine Food. “Food tends to bring more readership,” said Coson. “It’s more inviting.” 

Out-of-Print No More

Fernandez is a name that any Filipino epicurean can immediately recognize, thanks to the roughly 30 years she spent writing restaurant reviews, documenting Filipino modes of cooking, and traveling across the country as a sort of gastronomic archivist. Her essays — part anthropology and part reflection on the Filipino experience — appeared in publications such as the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Mr. & Ms., Metro, and more. A simple article on the economics of mangoes can easily morph into an ode to the golden fruit, complete with a sarswela and vivid, nostalgic images of “mangoes peeled whole with the hands… to drip on chins and clothes.” “With the Doreen books,” said Henson, “it’s like having one of us talk about us in our own way, with our own sense of humor, and with our own sense of palate.”

Aside from Anvil’s reprinted edition of Tikim, a Fernandez book is hard to find in the wild. Many of her books are intermittently out of print, meaning that the copies circulating online (and, although very rarely, in shops) are limited, perhaps in poor condition, and usually heavily overpriced. “It’s hard to get these copies,” said Coson. “Like, in 10 years, do we really still want to be chasing the last remaining copies of these books?”

For Coson, the solution to this bibliophilic scarcity — not just of Fernandez’s titles, but of Philippine literature as a whole — lies entirely with the country’s publishing houses. “I think [the University of the Philippines] has been reprinting books for a while now, as well as other [university presses],” said Coson. “But heck, there are so many new presses now, and they’re all publishing new writing. That’s really great, but with [publishing] houses like ours, I think we’re tackling a different challenge by publishing these older books. I thought that maybe if I focused on this area that doesn’t have enough attention, at least I’m doing my little part in publishing.”

Coson and her team already have a list of future projects, from a collection of short stories to works of Filipino fiction, to side-by-side translations of novels written in regional languages, and even plans for the Exploding Galaxies website to be turned into an archive and resource for readers.

“But,” said Coson, quick to remind herself, “maybe more importantly, there’s this opportunity to publish the Doreen Fernandezes and Erwin Castillos and out-of-print authors of Philippine literature. If we don’t do it, I don’t know if anyone will.”