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PENGUIN BOOKS DISTRIBUTES NOLI ME TANGERE: Consulate holds community celebration on November 29

PHILIPPINE CONSULATE - NEWS RELEASE
16 November 2006

Penguin Classics’ Executive Editor Elda Rotor presents the "Noli Me Tangere" book to Consul General Cecilia Rebong

NEW YORK --- Penguin Books, one of the world's major publishing companies, has printed and distributed a new translation of the Noli Me Tangere. Its translator, Mr. Harold Augenbraum, is the Executive Director of the National Book Foundation and has translated several Latino books.

The Noli is the first work of Filipino literature to be published in Penguin Classics. It is now available worldwide.

Philippine Consul General in New York Cecilia Rebong met with Penguin Books Classics' Executive Editor Elda Rotor and said "It means a lot to Filipinos and Philippine literature that the whole world now has access to the Noli. People will get to know our national hero, and the novel that influenced Philippine history in the biggest way." She adds "I am glad that Penguin has considered this a world classic."

To celebrate this literary milestone, the Philippine Consulate General in New York and the Order of the Knights of Rizal and Kababaihang Rizalista are hosting a community reception to present the book. Entitled "Ala-ala kay Gat Jose Rizal," the affair is open to the public and will take place on Wednesday, November 29, 2006, 6:30pm at the Philippine Center's Kalayaan Hall (556 Fifth Avenue, New York City). The event also coincides with Philippine National Heroes Day (November 30).

Executive Editor Elda Rotor, a Filipino American, was happy to help launch the Philippine novel. "Harold Augenbraum's new translation of the Noli represents Penguin's commitment to publish the major literary classics of the world. For me, it's a particular joy on many levels, to place Rizal on the same shelf as Dickens and Austen, to share a classic that is read, studied, and celebrated in parts of the world, yet unfamiliar to a wider audience," said Rotor. "Penguin Classics will continue to publish new translations and international rediscoveries to bridge this gap and to share literary treasures globally," she adds. Rotor also notes interest among professors across the US in making the Noli part of their curriculum.

"Rizal is as important to the politics and culture of the Philippines as any writer in any country in the world," said Augenbraum. "One could perhaps cite such writers as Leopold Senghor in Senegal and Vaclav Havel in the Czech Republic and perhaps Jose Marti in Cuba as important figures to the development of their countries, but I believe that Rizal and his image have become, over the decades, the most important central figure in the development of a social and political culture to his country as any single figure to their own country," he added.

In more than a century since its appearance, José Rizal's Noli Me Tangere has become widely known as the great novel of the Philippines. Rizal became a quiding conscience and martyr for the revolution that would subsequently rise up in the archipelago. He was later named the national hero of the Philippines.

Augenbraum's translation is based on the 1887 original text published in Berlin, and reprinted by the Jose Rizal National Centennial Commission in 1961 in Manila. It includes an extensive introduction and a glossary on Filipino terminologies.

For more information on the reception, please call (212)764-1330 ext 336 or email events@pcgny.net.