Kolkata Correspondent bdnews24.com
“This edition of the Book Fair will be dedicated to the Bengal Rennaisance of the nineteenth century which started a great surge of intellectual creativity in what was then undivided Bengal,” says Tridib Chatterjee, General Secretary of Publishers and Booksellers Guild that organises the Kolkata Book Fair.
Chatterjee said that the various birth anniversaries of great Bengalis fall around this Book Fair, which is it is being dedicated to the memory of the Bengal renaissance.
He said the Book Fair organisers have invited Nobel Laureates Amartya Sen and Mohammed Yunus to grace the first phase of the Fair that includes a literary meet. “We await confirmation from both of them.”
Sen and Yunus may be present at the high-profile literary meet of the Book fair on 30th January, he said.
Chatterjee said the other India-based Nobel Laureate Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader, has also been invited.
The 37th Kolkata Book fair will be inaugurated by well-known writer from Bangladesh, Professor Emeritus Anisuzzaman and the country’s Finance Minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerji will be the chief guest.
Since Bangladesh is the ‘theme country’, there will be much focus on literature and publishing in the country.
For the countless book lovers in West Bengal, who usually don’t find it easy to get books from Bangladesh, this is a great opportunity to pick up the best of the writing to come out of the country.
The last time Bangladesh was the ‘theme country’ of the Kolkata Book Fair was in 1997. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, then in her previous term in power, had then inaugurated the Fair.
She enjoyed the best of relations at that time with the late Jyoti Basu, then West Bengal Chief Minister, who played a major role in pushing through the Ganges water-sharing treaty.
The Bangladesh prime minister also enjoyed a warm personal relationship with present Chief Minister Mamata Banerji, until it soured over Banerji’s thwarting the signing of the Teesta water-sharing treaty that India wanted to push through last year during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Dhaka last year.
Banerji refused to join the Prime Minister’s entourage that contained Chief Ministers from Indian states bordering Bangladesh and opposed the Teesta water sharing treaty.
