Cultural events

Perro Berde: Philippine-Spanish cultural magazine

book launch

The cultural magazine Perro Berde, which is the only publication of Philippine culture in Spanish, presents its 3rd issue at the Instituto Cervantes in Manila. The magazine was initiated by a group of Filipino and Spanish writers residing in Manila. It presents, in the words of a member of the editorial board, “a venue for interaction among Filipino and Spanish and Latin American writers; an opportunity for a cultural exchange, which, in spite of the common history, has not been very significant in the last decades.” Sponsored chiefly by the Embassy of Spain in the Philippines and the AECID, Perro Berde is heir to a long tradition of Filipino publications in Spanish, which was the language employed in the first Filipino periodical, Aviso de noticias, in 1806. The name of the magazine is composed of a Spanish word (perro) and a vernacular present in various dialects of the Archipelago (berde, with Tagalog orthography, which does not have the letter V). With that title, aside from alluding to the rarity of current Filipino writings in Spanish, the publication intends “to transmit the cultural dialogue which supports the project.”