The normal spectacle of shelves at Dhaka and other big-city bookshops stacked up with popular Indian Bangla fictions prompts many to reach the old conclusion: a section of book sellers are, in effect, preventing the growth of the Bangladeshi publication sector. In fact, they are driven by their commercial interest. In the present context, the Indian fictions stand for those written by the authors of Kolkata. These shops are also blamed for the poor standing of the country's books beside the publications from West Bengal. It's true, except the novels by Humayun Ahmed, few writers in this country are fortunate enough to have the capability to drive the shop owners to keep a place reserved for them. Humayun Ahmed has been having this distinction for long along with Kolkata's Sunil Gongopadhyay et al. This craze for West Bengal writers has been seen veritably stuck in the reading culture of Bangladesh.
In the recent years a new scenario, however, has been taking shape. Many in the local reading public remain unaware of this hitherto-unnoticed spectacle. Bagladeshi books are no longer left in the dust-covered dark corners of shelves at the book shops. A lot of outlets in Dhaka and Chittagong these days boldly display the arrival of new books by the Bangladeshi writers. Indisputably, the month-long Ekushey Book Fair at Bangla Academy every year has been playing an important role in this upbeat development.
Perhaps taking cue from this fact, the guild of publishers in Kolkata has felt the urge to help organise an exclusively Bangladeshi book fair in their city. In line with this, the Bangladeshi 'academic and creative book publishers' decided to hold an annual book fair in Kolkata. They felt quite positive and were filled with enthusiasm. The Bangladesh Deputy High Commission in Kolkata came up with the logistic support, so did the Kolkata mayoral authorities. The Bangladesh National Book Centre also joined the collaborative effort. Thus a book fair featuring purely Bangladeshi publications has been taking place every year in the Indian city since 2011. The venue has for the last six years been Rabindra Sadan near the Nandan cultural complex. This year it has been shifted to Mohor Kunjo park adjacent to Victoria Memorial and opposite Nandan. The 2017 Bangladesh Book Fair in the West Bengal capital, its seventh edition, opened on November 15 with the participation of around 60 publishers. It will remain open for nine days.
Compared to the massive 'Kolkata Pustak Mela', Kolkata Book Fair, the Bangladesh Fair, is a tiny event. But when it comes to its importance to the West Bengal readers, the fair stands out with a special status. According to the Bangladeshi publishers participating in the short-duration fair, they were surprised to find the Indian readers' great eagerness to learn about the literary and scholarly activities in Bangladesh. By the third book fair, the number of Bangladeshi publishers had increased considerably. The readers, too, did not remain limited to creative books only. They began showing their interest in varied subjects ranging from linguistics, history, science, anthropology to folk culture and archaeology. By nature, Kolkata's educated people are avid readers. That they will take so much interest in Bangladeshi publications has not occurred to the publishers. Thanks to the holding of the fair every year, the readers in West Bengal now seem to be quite updated on the writing trends in Bangladesh. Apart from this exclusive fair, Bangladeshi publishers also participate in the Kolkata Book Fair, and a smaller one in Agartala, the capital of the Tripura state.
Books from Bangladesh have long deserved their due place in the Bengal region's writing and readership landscape. Unlike in West Bengal, they are the outcome of an exercise made in the nation's state language --- Bangla.
shihabskr@ymail.com