In three short years, Hay Dhaka, which starts today at the Bangla Academy, has established itself as one of South Asia’s leading English language literary festivals.
Like the larger, landmark Ekushey book fair, it highlights the huge appetite for books among readers and writers in the country.
As a nation, we are failing to properly satisfy public demand because of barriers holding back our publishing and book-selling industries.
For Bangladesh to advance in the global knowledge economy, we need to do much more to remove constraints on publishers and to increase readership and book sales.
In part, the lack of a truly vibrant publishing industry is a reflection of high rates of adult illiteracy in the country, which is something the government must do more to address. Likewise, it and philanthropists should do more to create and develop public lending libraries, which can readily be set up at or alongside schools and public offices.
More immediately, we can and should reduce our higher than average taxes and levies on books, and consider coming in line with countries which impose no such taxes at all.
The curse of piracy is perhaps the biggest challenge we need to overcome. While superficially attractive to students who obtain cheaply photocopied textbooks, creativity and research is stifled as piracy deprives writers and publishers of the royalties and funds needed to support the development of new work.
The net result is severe scarcity in the availability of good quality and original books. We must do better to allow new talent to flourish.