DU Correspondent :
Amar Ekushey Book Fair 2017 began on the Bangla Academy premises and at Suhrawardy Udyan on Wednesday with organizers failing in management as dust was drifting in the air. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina inaugurated the fair along with a four-day International Literature Conference 2017 attended by prominent litterateurs from Austria, Germany, Puerto Rico, Malaysia, Russia, China and India.
The premier also distributed prizes among the winners of ‘Bangla Academy Sahitya Puroshkar 2016’.
Ocean of Sorrow’, translation of noted Bengali novelist Mir Mosharraf Hossain’s famous novel ‘Bishad Sindhu’ and ‘Hundred poems from Bangladesh’, published from Germany were handed to the premier at the function.
As soon as the Prime Minister left the academy premises, visitors were seen entering the book fair venues without going through security checking.
A fair security control room official said that they were yet to deploy enough forces as the first day’s security was ensured by the special security force deployed for the prime minister.
Many of the stalls were found closed or their decoration was not completed on the opening day with decoration materials piled up in front, hindering movement of visitors- a violation of the fair committee guidelines.
The people working at the stalls said they got the allotment only a few days ago, so they could not complete the construction work.
Publishers put down the delay in stall decoration to the academy authorities who failed to allot the stalls in time. We need more time to ready our stalls,’ said Sanhati Prokash chief executive Dipok Roy as ‘Security arrangement for the inauguration ceremony also hampered our job.
At least 100 publishing houses including government and autonomous institutions such as National Museum, Bangladesh Shishu Academy and Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy did not open their stalls till 5:30pm.
The fair organizers failed to provide any list of the day’s arrivals as the information centre was yet to be set up. A fair committee official said, ‘there remain some violations of the fair guidelines on the first day and things will be alright in the coming days.’ This year, a total of 663 units of stalls have been allocated to 409 publishing houses and organizations to sell and exhibit their books and publications.
The stalls for the mainstream publishing houses have been placed inside the Suhrawardy Udyan while those of government organizations and Bangla Academy will be in the academy compound like previous years.
The fair time has been increased by half an hour from previous year. It will now open at 3:00pm and continue till 8:30pm.
On holidays, the fair will run between 11:00am and 8:30pm. On February 21, however, the fair will open at 8:00am and continue till 8:30pm. Holding of the fair on the Bangla Academy premises began informally in 1972, but it became institutionalized in 1978. The fair was then named Amar Ekushey Granthamela and a guideline for it was formulated in 1984.
