Staff Reporter
The “Amar Ekushey Book Fair 2009” will begin tomorrow (Sunday) at the Bangla Academy premises in the city in memory of the historic Language Movement of February 1952.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will inaugurate the month-long festival at 3:00pm at the Bangla Academy as chief guest. National Professor Kabir Chowdhury and Information and Cultural Minister Abul Kalam Azad will be present as special guests. Chairman of Bangla Academy Prof Mohammad Harun-or-Rashid will preside over the function.
The venue of the country’s largest book festival and outside will be decorated with banners, festoons and placards upholding the spirit of Amar Ekushey. The entire venue will be free from smoking and polythene.
This year the fair venue has been extended to the footpath on the road near the Bangla academy spanning from the Nutrition Institute to Energy Commission.
Allocation of stalls for Amar Ekushey Book Fair 2009 is going on, 450 stalls will be allocated for the publishers for this year’s Book Fair.
Bangla Academy has been organising the book fair since 1978 and in 1984 it was named Amar Ekushey Book Fair.
On the occasion of the fair, Bangla Academy has already published 80 new books and it will be unveiled in the fair.
Mercantile Bank is the sponsor of the book fair for this year.
A holiday of the month will be declared for children and this day will be open only for children and their guardians.
The criteria for participation of publishers in the Ekushey Book Fair for this year have been changed.
A publisher, who published at least 100 books during his publishing career or 20 books in the last one year, is allowed to participate in this year’s book fair.
In the last book fair, a publisher was given allocation of stall on the basis of his publication of only 15 books in the previous year.
Some reputed publishers have faced problem in getting allocation of stalls this year due to the changed criteria.
A seminar titled “Bangladesh for Possibility” will be held in the fair every day from February 2 to February 20. The cultural programmes will also be held every day.
Courtesy: nation.ittefaq.com
