Organizers of the International Kolkata Book Fair have decided to dedicate the 45th edition of the event, to be held in July, to Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
At a press conference on Thursday, Publishers and Booksellers Guild President Tridib Chatterjee said owing to the pandemic, the fair will be held in July with Bangladesh as the “Focal Theme Country,” reports the Free Press Journal.
“As 2020 already marked Bangabandhu’s birth centenary - and come March 26, the 50th year of Bangladesh’s independence - the International Kolkata Book Fair 2021 will be dedicated to Bangabandhu and the golden jubilee year of independence of Bangladesh," he added.
Stating that the book fair scheduled was being deferred due to the pandemic, Chatterjee also added that the 125th birth year of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose and the birth centenary of Satyajit Ray will also be celebrated in the fair.
Publishers and Booksellers Guild has also decided to pay homage to recently demised personalities like Soumitra Chatterjee, Pranab Mukherjee, Anisujjaman, Debesh Roy, Nimai Bhattacharya, Manabendra Bandyopadhyay, Alokeranjan Dasgupta, Swapan Mazumdar, among others.
“Considering the upcoming Assembly Election, ICSE, CBSE board exams and Madhyamik and Higher Secondary exams, the book fair will be held in July 2021 at Central Park Mela Ground of Salt Lake [also known as Bidhinagar] in Kolkata,” Sudhangshu Sekhar Dey, general secretary of Publishers and Booksellers Guild said.
“Necessary health protection and Covid-19 protocol will be taken to organize the fair in this changed schedule. We expect that the international flights will be in operation by that time and the Fair will have international participants like the earlier years,” he added.
“We are happy to announce that, for the first time, Publishers and Booksellers Guild will organize a Book Festival ‘Ekushe Bhasha Utsab’ to celebrate International Mother language Day. The Festival will celebrate Bengali literature, language, and culture,” Dey concluded.
