Kol Book Fair set to open today with over 1,000 stalls in Salt Lake
Times of India | 28 January 2025
12 Kolkata: The 48th International Kolkata Book Fair (IKBF), which is to be inaugurated by chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday at Central Park in Salt Lake, will have the highest number of stalls this year. "This year, there will be around 1,056 stalls, including books and little magazines," Publishers and Booksellers Guild president, Tridib Chatterjee said. Last year, there were around 1,050 stalls.
Along with the CM, Phillip Ackermann, HE Ambassador of Germany in India, Marla Stuckenberg, regional director, Goethe Institute, South Asia, eminent writer Abul Bashar, several ministers of the state govt, and other dignitaries are scheduled to be present at the inauguration ceremony. Abul Bashar will be conferred the Guild Lifetime Literary Award in the inaugural ceremony. Germany is the focal theme country this year. USA, UK, France, Russia, Nepal, Spain, Peru, Argentina, Guatemala, Costa Rica, and other Latin American countries are to be present in the foreign complex. There will be stalls of all national and multinational publishing houses in the book fair. Bangladesh is not participating this time. "This is the first time Germany is the theme country. The circle is going to be completed from 1976 when the Frankfurt Book Fair was organised. Our predecessors were inspired by the Frankfurt Book Fair, which led to the inception of the International Kolkata Book Fair," Chatterjee said.
For the first time, an Android app — International Kolkata Book Fair — is being introduced to locate any stall in the fair using Google location. The Guild is doing away with the ground map this time. The participants' list of the book fair will be available just by scanning an QR code, which will be placed at different points inside the fairground.
Also, for the first time, the book fair is having a special mascot with two ducks — named Haso & Hasi — to greet all the visitors.
The entry gates of the fair have been named after eminent personalities like Salil Chowdhury, Ritwik Ghatak, Goethe, Max Mueller, Hackeschen Höfe, Brandenburg, Biswa Bangla, and Jibananda Nazrul. The inner lanes inside the fairground have also been named after eminent German literary personalities like Rainer Maria Rilke, Bertolt Brecht, Franz Kafka, Herta Muller, Thomas Mann, and others, along other noted personalities and litterateurs.