Despite strong opposition from "Prakashak Oikko" (Publishers' Unity), construction of stalls for Book Fair 2026 is more than halfway done, and workers at the site say the fair will open on schedule.
Visiting Suhrawardy Udyan on Sunday around 3:20pm, this correspondent found several stalls already completed, with others having their poles and tin sheets in place.
Md Salahuddin, one of the workers at the site, told Dhaka Tribune that everything would be finished within the deadline.
Meanwhile, Prakashak Oikko has announced it will not participate in the Amar Ekushey Book Fair 2026, citing Bangla Academy's "failure to follow through on earlier agreements and its failure to address concerns about lack of transparency".
The announcement came through a press release issued on Saturday night.
According to the platform, the "combination of unresolved opacity in stall and pavilion allocation, Bangla Academy's failure to act on the terms they had informally agreed to, and the resulting severe time constraints have made it impossible for them to participate" in the upcoming fair.
The platform had previously pledged, on behalf of more than 300 creative publishers associated with it, that given the exceptional circumstances this year, in the interest of equal rights, they would not take any pavilion themselves and that no one else should have one either — reflecting the shared aspiration of publishers at every level.
The platform claims that ahead of the formal meeting on Wednesday (February 18), they had reached a verbal understanding with the Director General of Bangla Academy on several key demands, the most significant of which was cancelling all pavilions and allocating stalls of no more than 5 units to everyone on an equal footing.
The grievances driving their position include what they describe as extreme time pressure, a lack of transparency and fairness in the allocation process, and unfair advantages being given to certain publishers.
