M M Jasim :
Amar Ekushey Boi Mela-2018 began at the Bangla Academy grounds and its adjoining Suhrawardy Udyan on Thursday, in colourful festivities.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina inaugurated the Book Fair on the Bangla Academy premises at 3pm in presence of booklovers and members of intellectuals from home and abroad.
Poet Agnes Meadows, from UK, Cameroonian poet Dr Joyce Ashuntantang, Ibrahim El Masry, from Egypt, and Orne Johnson, from Sweden, were present at the inaugural ceremony as distinguished foreign guests.
Cultural Affairs Minister Asaduzzaman Noor attended the opening ceremony as a special guest while the Bangla Academy Director General Shamsuzzaman Khan delivered the welcome speech with its President Emeritus Professor Anisuzzaman in the chair. Bangla Academy organises the event every year.
The fair will remain open every day from 3pm to 8:30pm, except for holidays. It will remain open on public holidays from 11am to 8pm and run from 8am to 9pm on the International Mother Language Day (February 21).
Bangla Academy Director General and Convener of the Fair Shamsuzzaman Khan said, “Ekushey Boi Mela is symbolic of our love for Bangla language and literature. It also provides something of a basis to gauge how far we have progressed in developing our language and literature including translation of books from foreign languages into our mother tongue.”
“Actually it is the Bengali term Boi Mela, which sounds nicer and, in its literal meaning festival of books, is more accurate. Because this is not some trade expo, like Frankfurt, nor is it some polite but dull gathering of the middle classes. The fair attracts hundreds of thousands of people over its duration.”
“It is dedicated to the language martyrs of 21st February 1952 who sacrificed their lives during a demonstration, calling for the establishment of the Bengali language as the state language of former united Pakistan,” he said.
The event that started its journey in 1984 has hugely expanded in size, number of publications on display, and in terms of attracting visitors over the years.
During the 1950s and 1960s, the Book Fair was not a part of the Ekushey celebration. It started assuming a new look soon after Independence. It was in 1972 that a publisher, Chittaranjan Saha, of the prestigious publishing house Muktadhara came forward with a couple of books and spread on a mat. That was the beginning and soon in the mid 1970s some others joined him and the book fair got off to a modest start only to grow in size and colour.
The Academy authorities have allotted a total of 719 stalls – 136 at the Bangla Academy ground to 92 organisations and 583 at the Suhrawardy Udyan to 363 organisations.
Last year, the authorities allotted a total of 663 stalls – 114 at the Bangla Academy ground to 80 organisations and 549 at Suhrawardy Udyan to 329 organisations.
Besides, 24 pavilions have been allocated for 24 major publishing houses, including Bangla Academy, while last year, 15 pavilions were allocated for 14 publishing houses.
There will be strict security arrangements in and around the book fair venue to avert any unpleasant incident during the fair.
Publishers from across Bangladesh will exhibit huge number of books on different issues while Bangla Academy will exhibit 141 newly printed and reprinted books.
Bangla Academy will organise a two-day International Literature Conference on February 22 and 23 to build a good bonding network among the local and foreign writers, poets, novelists as well as to create a platform to exchange their literary works.
