Frankfurt Book Fair 2025 grows again, with the Philippines as guest of honour

The 77th Frankfurter Buchmesse was held from 15 to 19 October 2025, with the Philippines as guest of honour. It was only the second time the fair had invited a guest country from Southeast Asia, after Indonesia in 2015. The Philippine programme, presented under the line The imagination peoples the air, taken from José Rizal, brought more than 100 authors, illustrators and other creatives to Frankfurt.

According to the fair's closing report, 118,000 trade visitors and 120,000 private visitors attended, 238,000 in all, and there were 4,350 exhibitors. The two rights centres were fully booked, with 591 tables between them. The organisers named artificial intelligence in publishing, book-to-screen adaptation, the growth of audiobooks and media literacy among the main subjects of discussion.

The 78th fair is scheduled for 7 to 11 October 2026, with Czechia as guest of honour.

The guest-of-honour programme is one of the more reliable routes by which literature from smaller or less translated markets reaches German and then wider European readers, because it is backed by translation funding and a year of preparation. For writers and publishers elsewhere, the fair's agenda is also a fair guide to what the trade is worried about: this year, again, AI and audio were near the top.

Sources: Frankfurter Buchmesse: Frankfurter Buchmesse continues to grow; Frankfurter Buchmesse: The Philippines will be Guest of Honour in 2025.