Amar Ekushey Book Fair 2020 at Bangla Academy in Dhaka is expected to get a new look this year marking the birth centenary of the great leader Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. The country’s largest book fair will begin on February 2.
Here we will discuss about 5 things to know about “Amar Ekushey Book Fair 2020”.
- This year’s fair will start from February 2 to February 29. Because of the city corporation election, the authority changed the date which actually started on the 1st day of February in previous years. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is expected to inaugurate the book fair.
- As this year’s book fair will be dedicated to Bangabandhu, organizing committee have taken some special measures to highlight him. Those will include making five installations on Bangabandhu, organizing seminars on him and publishing a large number of books on his life and works. Some bookstalls will be made in the shape of Bangabandhu’s house of Dhanmondi 32 along with setting five installations on Bangabandhu at different points of the fair area.
- The fair will remain open from 3pm to 9pm from Sundays to Thursdays; and from 11am to 9pm on Fridays and Saturdays. On February 21, the fair will remain open from 8am to 8pm. There will be strict security arrangements in and around the book fair venue to avert any unpleasant incident during the fair.
- Like the previous years, the venue of the fair has been extended to the nearby Suhrawardy Udyan. This year, the land earmarked for the fair has been expanded to 750,000 sq-ft which was 550,000 sq-ft in the previous year. A total of 34 pavilions have been allocated this year which was 24 in the last year. The number of publication houses and other organizations joining at the annual book fair this year increased to 550 from 499 in 2019 while units increased to 850 from 770 in 2019.
- Publishers from across the country will come to the fair with a wide variety of books while Bangla Academy will exhibit around 200 newly-printed and reprinted books in which a good number of those on Bangabandhu. The cover of the third book of Bangabandhu, titled “Amar Dekha Naya Chin” (The New China as I Saw) will be available on the fair.
> Dipto Paul
