Love for literature and a commitment to radically transform society are essential but insufficient. “Padma masterfully willed the book into being. From 100 finalists, 29 were selected as winners, who will receive recognition at a ceremony to be held at the Manila Metropolitan Theater on May 13.Ĭonstantino paid tribute to Padmapani Perez, the poet and anthropologist who is the anthology’s lead editor. Over 200 titles were nominated for this year’s book awards. Harvest Moon is composed of 30 photographs and 30 poems, stories and essays written in 11 languages from 24 countries spanning Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Pacific. “We need far more poetry and art,” said Constantino, “Because at the edge of the climate crisis, it is not spreadsheets and treatises we will find but anguish, indifference, and mountains of resolve and courage.” Launched in 1982, the awards are given out by the Manila Critics Circle and the National Book Development Board. ICSC won the national book award in 2015 when it published Agam: Filipino Narratives on Uncertainty and Climate Change. “It’s high time we recognize the need to use everything in the toolbox as we confront the limits of science and politics in the response to climate change,” said the writer Red Constantino, managing director of the Constantino Foundation and the former head of the Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities (ICSC), which published Harvest Moon.Ĭonstantino is also an editor of the anthology.

Titled Harvest Moon: Poems and Stories from the Edge of the Climate Crisis, the publication won the National Book Award for Best Anthology at the 40th National Book Awards.

A pioneering book on climate change that avoids jargon-including the words “climate change”-won the nod of judges by using stories and images anchored on hope and lunar cycles, written in languages ranging from Tagalog, Kankanaey, English, Cebuano, Chinese, Spanish, Zapoteca, and Turkish.

Losing hope book