Rayhanul Islam :
Bangla Academy on Thursday honoured six eminent personalities of the country for their outstanding contribution in literature and intellectual arena on Thursday, the second day of Amar Ekushey Book Fair-2017.
National Professor Mustafa Nurul Islam, language movement veteran and researcher Ahmad Rafik, Professor Burhanuddin Khan Jahangir, Professor Emeritus Rafiqul Islam, Serajul Islam Choudhury and Anisuzzaman. Bangla Academy Director General Shamsuzzaman Khan received flower, crest and scarf from.
Professor EmiretusAnisuzzaman Khan was absent due to his illness. Meanwhile, ‘International Literary Conference-2017’ was a very important aspect as laureates from home and abroad got the chance to share their thinking, views and ideas on various dimentions of literature. The first session began at 10:30 am in the Abdul Karim Sahitya Bisharad Auditorium of the Bangla Academy with speech and poetry recitation from writers from abroad.
Russian literataurte Victor AlexandrovichPogade discussed on various Bengali writings translated in Russian and English language in Moscow. Later, he gifted three translations of Bengali writings ‘The light of the reborn hope’, ‘Tales & Legends of Bangladesh’ and ‘Perpetual Diary’ to Bangla Academy.
Chinese researcher and translator Professor Dong You Chen sang the national anthem of Bangladesh both in Bengali and Chinese with almost original composition.
Chen, the man who devoted his life in translating and researching Rabindranath Tagore discussed various aspects of translation and his literary works in Bengali language, he said. Sometimes, through translating a poem, its important aspects are lost. So, if you translate a poem, you must have to be a poet.”
Manfred Chobot of Austria, JonaBurghardt from Argentina, Tobias Burghardt from Germany, Luz Maria Lopez and Maria De Los Angels Camacho Rivas from Puerto Rico also participated at the delightful session. However, the fair on its second day on Thursday witnessed a little increase in the number of visitors, who mostly leafed through titles to have an idea about what books they would be buying in the coming days, publishers and stall attendants said.
The annual book fair organised at Bangla Academy and Suhrawardy Udyan gave some breathing space to the busy city life, but many people visiting stalls in Suhrawardy Udyan part have complained about dust.
Barring from several stalls, all were found displaying books and waiting for buyers.
Robin Ahsan, publisher of Srabon Prakashani, said that the visitors were coming, but most of them were just browsing the titles. ‘The fair will get momentum from Friday,’ he said.
Visitors said that it was a good idea to hang around flipping through the titles and make their minds settled in early days of the month-long fair. Publishers and stall attendants said most of the visitors were collecting book lists from their stalls.
AfiaTasnim Urme, a Dhaka University Islamic Studies student, came to fair with her friends and said they arrived to have a ‘good time’ and browse through new titles.
‘The beauty of the book fair is that one gets to see so many kinds of titles in one place,’ she said. The fair committee had declared children’s hours from 11am to 1pm today.
