The sale in makeshift book stalls, eateries, toyshops and jewellery shops outside the Amar Ekushey Book Fair ground boosted in last few days.
A signing campaign, demanding recognition to Bengali language as an official language of the United Nations, also drew attention of the visitors in the fair.
However, according to the book fair information centre, tally of new arrivals during the first 10 days decreased sharply comparing to the last year.
The fair on its tenth day drew a huge crowd and 95 new titles hit the fair while 16 new books were launched at the Nazrul Mancha on Thursday.
Makeshift book stalls on footpaths on both sides of the road stretches from Shahbagh to Bangla Academy do brisk business. Hawkers were found busy selling their books.
The price of the books at these stalls ranges from Tk 10 to Tk 100.
These stalls were selling mostly Indian books, biographies and collections of Rabindranath Tagore, Kazi Nazrul Islam, Sharat Chandra Chatyapaddhay and Manik Bandyapaddhay and booklets of cartoons, juvenile literatures and many others topics.
Ruman Mahmud, a Maghbazar resident, buying books from such a stall told New Age that he don’t find any difference buying books in and outside the fair ground.
‘Same books are being sold in much higher prices inside,’ he said.
Another scene of the fair was the signing campaign by dhakareport.com, a news portal.
The campaigners said till Thursday more than 30,000 signs were collected.
Dhakareport.com organisers said they made a target to collect at least five crore signs within next one and half years.
‘We will submit an application to the United Nations demanding recognition to Bengali language,’ said Mosarraf Hossain of Dhakareport.com.
The shopkeepers of makeshift shops said jewelleries, including bangles, necklace and earrings, food items and toys have a good sale side by side the books sale.
While, with 95 new titles on the day, the total number of the new titles in the fair so far reached 837, 161 collections of novels led the tally of new arrivals followed by 153 poems, 107 story collections and 84 of essays and others.
As part of the month-long discussion on the life and works of Rabindranath Tagore, the academy held a seminar styled ‘Rabindranather Gaan Lalitakalar Amrita’ on Thursday.
Nural Anwar submitted a keynote paper while Mridul Kanti Chakrabarty, Rezwana Chowdhury Banya, Shila Momen took part in the discussion.
The academy today is scheduled to hold a seminar titled ‘Dekha Dik Arbar Janmer Pratham Shubhakkhan’ where Begum Akhtar Kamal will read out the keynote paper.
Nasir Ahmed, Anu Hossain, Tarek Reza are hoped to take part in the discussion that will be presided over by Poet Asad Chowdhury.
