45th International Kolkata Book Fair will witness a hike in the number of stalls

on Feb 07, 2022

The 45th International Kolkata Book Fair will see a jump in the stalls compared to the past few events held in the previous years. The Book Fair witnessed a surge in demand from publishers and authors, the organizers said. It will be held at Central Park in Salt Lake from February 28th. The Publishers and Booksellers Guild which organizes the fair had initially planned to set up around 600 stalls and fit 200 little stalls for magazine publishers. However, witnessing a surge in the applications from publishers from different states, who are keen to join the Kolkata Fair which is being held after 2 years of gap, has forced the organizers to look for additional space to accommodate more participants. They are excited to add more stalls than they ever did in the previous Book Fairs. The Book Fair was not held in the past 2 years due to the pandemic. “Several publishers from across India have been requesting space for stalls. Many of them said they were ready to share space with one or two participants,” said Sudhangshu Sekhar Dey, president of the guild. “We want more publishers to join because it will help the industry.” Guild members stated during their visit to the fair venue on Sunday that some of the recent applicants were relatively new in the publishing business. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is the chief guest and is scheduled to inaugurate the fair, which will have participants from several countries as well. Since this year is the birth centenary of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and also the 50th year of independence of Bangladesh, the theme country for the 45th International Kolkata Book Fair is Bangladesh.“On March 7, 1971, Bangabandhu had said that the struggle was for the freedom of Bangladesh. We expect Bangladesh will commemorate the day with due fanfare at the fair,” said Tridib Chatterjee, secretary of the guild.