First Week of Book Fair
Number of new books falls
Quite unusual with the Ekushey Book Fair, the number of new books arriving at the fair in the first week of the month-long even fell because of political unrest.
A total of 490 new titles hit the stalls in the fair during the first week while the figure was 727 during the corresponding period of the past year’s fair, according to the fair information centre.
The publishers attributed the fall to the dawn-to-dusk general strikes enforced by Jamaat-e-Islami and subsequent political unrest over the life-term imprisonment of Jamaat leader Abdul Quader Molla.
The book fair organising committee on Thursday had declared Shishu Prahar (children’s hour) on February 8, 9, 15 and 22.
On Friday, the fair will open for children at 10:00am and continue till 12:30pm. The book fair organising committee at a press conference at Bangla Academy also announced that children hours would be observed from 10:00am to 1:00pm on Saturday and from 10:00am to 12:30pm on February 15 and 22.
Fair organising committee member secretary Shahida Khatun said the guardians with children would be allowed into the fair during the child hours.
According to the book fair information centre, a total a total of 490 new titles, including Thursday’s 90, hit the fair on the first week of book fair while the number was 727 during same period in 2012.
Robin Ahsan of Sraban Prakashan and Abbas Ali of Siddikia Publications both said the number of new arrivals in the book fair had decreased because of the Jamaat strikes.
Robin said, ‘If you look back to the past years, a sizeable number of books had hit the stalls in the first week of the fair but this year figure has decreased.’
On Thursday, collection of novel led the tally with 20 books, followed by 16 poetry and 9 short story books.
Eleven new titles were also unveiled at Nazrul Mancha.
The book fair on the day witnessed a large number of visitors on the eve of the two-day weekend.
Though the fair place was almost empty of visitors when it opened at 3:00pm, the scenario changed within a couple of hours, when people poured into the fair ground in their hundreds.
The academy at its main stage held a seminar on ‘Birth centenary of Kamal Dasgupta’, chaired by Professor Rafiqul Islam. Professor Karunamay Goswami read out the keynote paper.
ABM Nurul Anwar, Syed Abdul Hadi and Khairul Alam Sabuz addressed the discussion.
A cultural function followed the discussion.
Today, a discussion on Habibullah Bahar Chowdhury, to be chaired by Ahmed Rafiq, will be held at 4:00pm. Mafidul Haq is expected to read out the keynote paper.
Professor Syed Anwar Husain, Morshed Shafiul Hasan and Israil Khan are scheduled to address the discussion.
A cultural function will be held later on.
-With New Age input
