Book fair brims with holiday crowd

Bookworms, in hundreds, thronged the Amar Ekushey Book Fair venue on the Bangla Academy and Suhrawardy Udyan premises on Saturday, soaring up sales of books and broadening smiles of publishers.
While visiting the country’s biggest book fair on its tenth day, many visitors were seen checking out and buying books, while others were waiting for their favourite authors to come to the fair.
With popular writers and their passionate readers, the fairground turned into a rendezvous for booklovers on the day. Especially, the fair venue got crowded after iftar and salespersons at different book stalls spent a hectic time, dealing with the pressure of readers.
Publisher of Pathak Shamabesh, Shahidul Islam Bizu, said the sale was not that good since the beginning of this year’s book fair but it has increased in the last two days.
“Readers are exploring stalls every day and we are doing good business. But things were a bit different till Thursday. It seems that the presence of readers has increased significantly in the following days,” he told the Daily Sun.
According to the renowned publisher, his house has brought a number of new books in the fair and is getting huge response from readers.
“Among all our new books, ‘Jibanananda Das: Jibon o Kirti’ by Faizul Latif Chowdhury, ‘Kotipoy Jotichinho’ by Ahmed Mostafa Kamal, the series of classical Bengali literature, ‘Collection of Shahidul Zahir’, ‘O General My General: Bangabir General Mohammad Ataul Ghani Osmany’ by Dewan Mohammad Tasawwar Raja and some books published in previous years have been going good,” he added.
Fictionist Swakrito Noman was seen giving autograph on his old books, sitting at the stall of Anyaprokash. Speaking about this year’s book fair, he said, “For the past twenty years, at least one of my books has been published at every book fair. This year, however, none of my books has been released so far. Although one was supposed to come out, I am not sure whether it will be published at all.” He said the good thing for him is visitors are purchasing his old books. Many visitors complained this correspondent of the extremely dusty environment saying that the Bangla Academy has not fared well in ensuring a proper environment for readers.
Hafizul Alam Khandaker, a retired banker and a regular visitor of the fair, said, “The management of the fair seems weak this time. Adequate water was not sprayed in the field to curb dust. There is lack of cleanliness as well.”
He also expressed his dissatisfaction with the traffic management on the road in front of the fair and in front of the entrances.
On the tenth day of the book fair, the final round of the children and adolescents’ music competition was held at the Abdul Karim Sahitya Bisharad Auditorium of the Bangla Academy.
Besides, a discussion programme titled “Birth Centenary: Nurjahan Begum” was held at the main stage of the book fair at 3:00pm with Luva Nahid Chowdhury in the chair.
Israil Khan presented keynote paper while Sohrab Hasan was present as discussant.
Mostafa Majid discussed his new books at the Lekhok Bolchi stage on the day.
Today, on the eleventh day of the fair, a discussion on “Asad Chowdhury” will be held on the main stage of the book fair at 3pm. 
Kudrat-e-Khoda will present the key note paper while Shaikat Habib will participate in the discussion to be presided over by Syed Azizul Haque.