In 2023, Mara Coson launched Exploding Galaxies, a publishing house dedicated to finding lost Filipino classics and making them accessible to readers again. “These are books that should have never been lost but somehow are, over time. What we do is we find them and we bring them back,” said the publisher.
The intention was to focus on fiction—out-of-print novels, in particular—and they’ve succeeded in publishing three so far: Wilfrido D. Nolledo’s But for the Lovers, Linda Ty-Casper’s The Three-Cornered Sun, and Erwin E. Castillo’s The Firewalkers.
But there’s another book people kept asking Mara to republish: Sarap: Essays on Filipino Food by Doreen G. Fernandez and Edilberto N. Alegre.
And so she did—along with Palayok: Philippine Food Through Time, On Site, In the Pot, also by Doreen.