Book lovers swarm to Friday fair
Booklovers throng the Ekushey Book Fair premises in Dhaka on Friday. — Sony Ramany
Thousands of visitors thronged the ongoing Amar Ekushey Book Fair venues at Bangla Academy and Suhrawardy Udyan on the last Friday of the fair.
A number of children, accompanied by guardians, started pouring into the fair in the morning during Shishu Prahar, dedicated time for children from 11:00am to 1:00pm.
Prizes were handed over to the child winners of drawing, music and recitation competitions on the day.
Children’s book publishing house, Sisimpur stall manager Shahriar Sajib said that a large number of children along with their guardians came to the fair on the day.
‘We have brought nine new titles during the fair and received good response from children,’ said Sajib.
The police tightened security measures in and around the book fair as the Bangla Academy authorities on Thursday filed a general diary with the Shahbagh police station after receiving a letter reportedly from the banned extremist outfit Ansar al-Islam threatening to carry out bomb attack.
Since Friday morning, visitors in long queues were seen to go through archways to enter the venues due to security checks at the entrances and the queues became longer in the afternoon.
Bangala Gobeshona stall in-charge Bashar said that the day was the top selling day during the fair.
The University Press Limited senior executive Utsob Mosaddek echoed Bashar adding, ‘It is the last Friday of the fair and we expected more sales.’
Vobo Shatabdi, publisher of Sabyasachi, said that the publishing house brought 12 new titles for book lovers.
‘We have brought Taslima Nasrin’s new story book titled Chumban today and already received huge response from book lovers,’ said Shatabdi.
Visitor Arifur Rahman Himel came to the fair with his friends from Dhanmondi. He said, ‘I made a short list of new books. I will buy them today.’
According to Bangla Academy, 239 new titles were published on Friday raising the total number of books published in the fair to 2,965 so far.
Of the total number of books published in this year’s fair, highest 925 are collections of poems, followed by 424 novels, 370 books of stories, 151 books of essays, 103 biographies and 992 books of other genres arrived till the day.
On Friday, a discussion session titled ‘Literary theory of modernism, postmodernism and afterwards’ was held on the main stage of the fair on the Bangla Academy premises.
The fair will open at 11:00am on Saturday.
New Age
