Kolkata: After a year’s gap, Boimela to be back on January 31 – Times of India

KOLKATA: The International Kolkata Book Fair 2022 will start from January 31, chief minister Mamata Banerjee announced on Monday. However, its duration is yet to be declared. The book fair, organised by Publishers and Booksellers Guild, was cancelled in 2021 because of Covid. The guild had written to the CM before the Puja, requesting her to consider the possibility of holding the fair at the beginning of 2022 and asked for suggestions about precautions to be taken.
The chief minister had indicated to the guild officials on Mahalaya that she might allow the fair to be held in January, though she did not indicate any date at that time. The fair will be held at Salt Lake’s Central Park like previous years.
Under normal circumstances, the fair is held for 12 days. Guild officials hope the CM would not ask them to cut it short this time. The last book fair, held in 2020, started on January 28 and ended on February 8. A total of 600-odd publishers participated and there were 200 little magazines, too.
“We are expecting to be guided by the CM over the number of publishers we can invite this time, the layout of the fair and other precautions we need to take.. She has consulted the state health department and announced the date,” said Tridib Chatterjee, general secretary of the guild.
“We expect to hold the Kolkata Literature Festival, too, this time. However, everything will depend on the state advisory,” he said.
The guild organised two small book fairs this year — one at Jodhpur Park and the other at Bidhan Shishu Udyan. The first had just 150 publishers and social distancing, along with other Covid protocols. Only 100sqft was allotted to each publisher.
“We organised the fair at Jodhour Park to celebrate Bhasha Diwas and called it Ekusher Boimela. It started from February 21 and continued for eight days. Since the city was missing the book fair, we got quite a good response,” said Sudhangshu Dey, president of the Guild.
On Monday, a group of publishers belonging to the Bangiya Prakashak O Pustak Bikreta Sabha started a small book fair on their premises on College Street. About 100 publishers are participating. Another group of publishers had held a small fair at Hrishikesh Park in April.
The Guild will hold its EC meeting on Tuesday to draw up tentative plans for the fair, which will be submitted to the CM. The Guild will announce the primary plans on Friday. “Even London Book Fair, one of the bigger fairs of the world, got pushed back from March to April. We are happy the CM is allowing us to hold our fair around the usual time,” Chatterjee said.