The curtain of book fair has fallen. Yesterday was the last day of book fair. If the time was not extended, then the book fair would have to closed two days earlier. In that case I would miss the book fair 2019 for ever. Somehow I am fortunate that Dider, a freelance journalist came to my office and requested me to visit the book fair. At his request I agreed to visit the book fair.
The weather was good. Temperature was moderate. When we reached the Doyel Chatter the sun was setting. It was a bright afternoon. The premise was dust free. Earlier on the 8th February I gathered bitter experience when I went to Bangla Academy to attend a publication ceremony as a special guest and found whole academy premise very dusty.
The visitors were lucky on the last day for healthy atmosphere. Previous 2/3 days we were blessed with heavy rainfall. So there was no dust and everyone, male or female, old man and children, were moving from one stall to other. We were talking in front of a book stall of a small publication. Then Prof. Abul Kashem Fazlul Haq drew our attention. We exchanged our views about book fair and other matters. After a while, Dider told me that Bangla Academy Director General Poet Habibulla Siraji was giving an interview to a television channel. He spent a lot of time for the interview.
The salesmen were very busy to issue cash memo. A few big stalls were in the high position of sale. One of a leading publisher opined that this year record number of new books has been published. He claimed that the number of visitors were higher than previous year. The total numbers of published books were 4834 this year. On the last day 68 new Books came to the fair. A large number of poetry books has also been published this year.
The number of new poetry books was 1608. Short stories and fictions 757 and 698, essay 272, research 80, biography 167, science 77, history 77, politics 33, religion 25, translated books 38, satire 37, computer 5, dictionary 6, science fiction 45, books for children 298, books on freedom struggle 110 and others 373. One thing I noticed in the book fair that the books of Rabindranath, Nazrul Islam, Sharat Chandra, Bankim Chandra and other books of distinguished writers were printed by different publishers without proper care. This should be checked by Bangla Academy. Free style cannot be allowed. One more point should be mentioned that many publishers deprive writers of their legal benefit of royalty. There should be system for payment of royalty. Depriving the authors, the beauty of book fair cannot flourish.
-Syed Tosharaf Ali.
