The book fair begins

The fair, along with an International Literary Conference celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Bangla Academy, will be inaugurated by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at 3:00pm.

Later, she will hand over the Bangla Academy Literary Award 2014, which was announced on Thursday, to the recipients.

Bangla Academy Director General Prof Shamsuzzaman Khan gave the details of this year's fair and the literary conference at a press conference at the academy yesterday.

In the three-day long conference, around 40 writers, poets, academicians and researchers from 12 different countries will participate in six sessions, two each day, from 10:00am to 1:00pm and then from 2:30pm to 5:00pm on prose, poetry and drama inside the Abdul Karim Sahitya Bisharad auditorium.

From February 5, the regular programmes of the academy, including seminars and cultural performances, will be held at 4:00pm every day.

Children's painting, general knowledge, recitation and speech competition will be held like the previous years. The dates for Shishu Prahar, a day or part of a day dedicated to children, will also be announced.

Latest books by Bangla Academy will be sold at 30 percent commission and those published before 2000 at 70 percent. Other publishers will sell their books at 25 percent commission.

The academy is planning to bring out 100 new books this year. Last year, different publishers brought out a total of 2,959 new books and book sales amounted to around Tk 16 crore.

Apart from “Chittaranjan Saha Smrity Puroskar” and “Munier Chowdhury Smrity Puroskar” for the best publisher and the three best books, “Rokonuzzaman Khan Dadabhai Smrity Puroskar” and “Qayyum Chowdhury Smrity Puroshkar” will be given for the best children's book and the best stall decoration this year.

Shamsuzzaman said as a book fair, the Amar Ekushey Granthamela has “the longest duration in the world”. He also hoped that the current political situation of the country, marked by violence, would not hamper the fair.

Publishers too had similar expectations. Milan Nath, publisher of Anupam Publication, said, “We had seen worse times in the '90s during the anti-autocracy movement. We hope that this time too this national festival will be kept free from political programmes.”

“Four layers of security will be put in place. Around 100 Ansar members will be deployed in addition to police and Rab personnel,” said Altaf Hossain, secretary of the academy. The road from TSC to Doyel Chattar will remain closed during fair hours throughout the month, he added.

Entrance to the Suhrawardy Udyan portion of the fair will be through the gate leading to Ramna Kali Mandir and two exits through the gate near TSC and Engineers' Institute.

Seventy-five close-circuit cameras and fire extinguishers in every two stalls will also be installed.

The budget for this year's fair and the conference, of a sum of Tk one crore 80 lakh, will be funded by the government and sponsor organisation Teletalk, Hossain said.