Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee to inaugurate 48th Kolkata Book Fair today
Telegraph | 29 January 2025
Chief minister Mamata Banerjee will inaugurate the 48th International Kolkata Book Fair at the Boimela Prangan in Central Park in Salt Lake on Tuesday afternoon.
Germany is the focal theme country for this year’s fair, which will continue till February 9.
Philipp Ackermann, the German ambassador to India, and Marla Stukenberg, the regional director of Goethe Institut in South Asia, will attend the opening ceremony.
“The fair will showcase close to 1,000 publishers of books and little magazines, the highest so far,” said Sudhangshu Dey, general secretary of the Publishers and Booksellers Guild, the organiser of the fair.
The fair will remain open from noon to 8pm. On the last day, it will close at 9pm.
Guild officials said Britain, the US, France, Italy, Spain, Peru, Argentina, Colombia and other Latin American countries will participate in the fair like every year.
Publishers from several states like Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Bihar, Assam, Jharkhand, Telangana, Kerala and Odisha will also participate in the fair.
Metro Railway has decided to run additional trains between Sealdah and Salt Lake Sector V from January 28 to February 9 for the visitors to the fair.
Metro will operate 122 trains instead of its usual weekday count of 106 on this route during the fair. The services will be available from 6.55am to 9.40pm. The trains will run at an interval of 12 minutes from 2.05pm to 9.15pm during the fair days, officials said.
“Some of the roads inside the fairground will be named after eminent German literary personalities like Rainer Maria Rilke, Bertolt Brecht, Franz Kafka, Herta Muller and Thomas Mann. Others will be named after litterateurs of our country,” Guild president Tridib Kumar Chatterjee said.
The Guild said the International Kolkata Book Fair was the world’s largest attended non-trade book festival and nearly 27 lakh people visited the fair last year. Book sales in 2024 amounted to ₹23 crore.
“A lottery will be organised daily and 15 winners will win book gift coupons worth ₹1,000,” said a Guild official.
On February 4, the fair will celebrate a senior citizens’ day.