Month-long Amar Ekushey Book Fair will begin on the Bangla Academy premises and at adjoining Suhrawardy Udyan in the Dhaka today. The grounds of Suhrawardy Udyan are already teeming with stalls stacking new books, as publishers gear up for the much anticipated Ekushey Boi Mela 2018.
Prime minister Sheikh Hasina will inaugurate the book fair on the Bangla Academy premises at 3pm on the day.
Poet Agnes Meadows (UK), Cameroonian poet Joyce Ashuntantang, Ibrahim El Masry (Egypt) and Orne Johnson (Sweden) will be present at the inaugural ceremony as distinguished foreign guests.
Cultural minister Asaduzzaman Noor will attend the opening ceremony as a special guest while the Bangla Academy director general Shamsuzzaman will deliver the welcome speech with its president emeritus professor Anisuzzaman in the chair.
Preparations began a week ago following a lottery for stall setups. Organised by Bangla Academy, the annual event is expected to be larger than ever before, by boosting the number of pavilions. Nirapod Events oversee the interiors at the fair.
Banglabazaar Publishers informed that a sheer number of books is expected to be seen from every single publishing house in the country. Like last year, 3,000 freshly published books are expected to be seen in stalls and pavilions this time. One publisher also added that despite the number of new books from promising and renowned writers, the late eminent writer Humayun Ahmed remains everyone’s favourite, whose reprinted copies fly off the shelves and into the homes of readers.
