The month-long Ekushey Book Fair-2015, an elegant calendar event for booklovers and publishers, begins at its traditional venue in Dhaka on Sunday afternoon.
The prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, would inaugurate the fair on the Bangla Academy premises. She would also open the four-day International Literary Conference-2015 alongside the book fair.
Authors, poets and linguistics from eight countries would participate in the international conference.
Apart from inaugurating the two events at 3:00pm, the prime minister would also distribute Bangla Academy Literary Award-2014 among the recipients at the inaugural function.
Bangla Academy on Thursday awarded seven eminent poets, writers and educationists with Literary Award-2014 for their contributions to various disciplines.
Shihab Sarkar received the award in poetry while Zakir Talukdar in prose, Shantanu Kaiser in essay and Bhuiyan Iqbal in research.
Among others, Abu Mohammad Delwar Hossain got the award for his work on the Liberation War, Bangladeshi expatriate writer Mainus Sultan in the biography and travelogue category and Khaleque Bin Zainuddin for juvenile literature.
This year, no awards have been given in drama, translation and science, technology and environment categories.
Each winner would receive Tk 1 lakh in cash, a crest and a certificate from the prime ninister Sheikh Hasina at the inaugural ceremony of the Ekushey Book Fair and International Literary Conference.
Following last year’s practice, the fair would be spread to two different places. Alongside the traditional site for the Ekushey Book Fair, the Bangla Academy premises, fair stalls have also been constructed at the adjacent Suhrawardy Udyan.
The Bangla Academy authorities decided last year to extend the book fair venue to the adjacent Suhrawardy Udyan to accommodate more stalls.
Around 300 organisations were likely to participate in the fair this year. Among these, 230 were mainstream publishing houses while 26 children’s book publication houses and 18 were government organisations.
The stalls for the mainstream publishing houses have been placed inside the Suhrawardy Udyan while stalls of children’s book publishing houses, little magazine corners, government organisations and the Bangla Academy would be inside the Bangla Academy compound.
Bangla Academy officials said there would be discussions and cultural events on the main stage on the Bangla Academy premises alongside the book fair.
Source: New Age
