Karina Africa Bolasco is the Curator of Books and Head of the Literary Program of the Philippines as Guest of Honour of the 2025 Frankfurter Book Fair.

Before retirement, she was the Director of the Ateneo de Manila University Press (2016-2023). Under her directorship, the university press was hailed Publisher of the Year seven times and close to 50 of their titles won National Book Awards. She served as Vice Chair for External Affairs of the Book Development Association of the Philippines. She also sat on the boards of the Philippine PEN, Writers Union of the Philippines (UMPIL), and as a Governor of the National Book Development Board (NBDB). Karina ran Anvil Publishing from its inception in 1990 to May 2016. Under her leadership, Anvil became a magnet of talent and a driver of cultural development and literary innovation. It should not surprise anyone that Karina’s Anvil was named Publisher of the Year eleven times and 205 of its titles won the National Book Award.

In 1995 Karina was awarded The Outstanding Women in the Nation’s Service (TOWNS) for Literacy and Book Publishing and, in 2023, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Manila Critics Circle and the Hildegarde Award from St. Scholastica’s College for her achievements in media and communications. In 2004, she was granted the Asia Leadership Fellow Program, hosted by the International  House of Japan (Tokyo) and the Japan Foundation. In March 2005, she was the Philippine delegate to the monthlong International Visitors Program for Women Leaders organized and hosted by the U.S. State Department. In 2018-19, Karina completed a 6-month fellowship at Kyoto University’s Center for Southeast Asian Studies (CSEAS).

She has delivered papers and represented the country in many publishing conferences. Her essays and poetry have been published in anthologies.