Dhaka: While the cricket World Cup fever has ‘attacked’ just about everything in the city, one venue still left unscathed is the Amar Ekushey Book Fair, going on at the Bangla Academy. As all others fell around like nine pins on the eve of the big match between Bangladesh and India, the book fair stood like a rock on Friday, drawing thousands of booklovers. The noise, the din and the chatter was like any other day, as was the crowd in front of the different stalls.
Though cricket accessories like miniature bats, balls, and t-shirts were selling outside the fair venue, inside it was business as usual — discussion, dialogues, debates and mini-wars over titles new and old.
Booklovers were seen browsing their favourite titles at different stalls, with Agamee, Anya and Oitijhya Prakashani being especially popular.
Being a public holiday, a large number of children also accompanied their parents to the fair.
While new arrivals caught the attention of most, many were seen browsing through titles published years ago. According to booksellers, the collection of novel and poetry is very high in numbers this year, and fiction is selling more compared to previous years.
Young readers are mostly going for books by the likes of Humayun Ahmed, Emdadul Haque Milon and Anisul Haque. Many young visitors to the fair were gathered in front of Onnya Prakash’s stalls, looking to lay their hands on the book “Fountain Pen”, authored by prominent novelist Humayun Ahmed. A representative at the stall said more than 50,000 copies of the books have already been sold so far at the fair this year.
Humayun Ahmed’s titles ‘Rabonar Dasa Ami Ebong Amra’, ‘Himur Asa Jal’ and ‘Magic Munsi’.
Shisir Ahmed, of ‘Onya Prokash’, said “Today we had a large number of visitors and most of them who came to our stall bought at least one book.”
