Shawdesh desk:

The lowest number of new titles has been launched in the first week of Amar Ekushey Book Fair this year in comparison with the number of new books launched during the period in past five years.

A total of 104 new titles were published on Tuesday, the seventh day, raising the total number of books published in the fair 528 so far.

The number of new arrivals is the lowest in comparison with the number of new books during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021 and 2022.

According to Bangla Academy, 692 new titles were launched in the first week of the book fair in 2022, 691 new titles in 2021, 640 titles in 2020 and 671 titles in 2019.

Most of the publishers said that the number of new books decreased this year due to rise in production costs.

Publisher of Ananya Prakashani Monirul Hoque said, ‘Ananya usually brought over 100 new titles in past years but it would bring only 35 new titles this year due to abnormal rise in production cost.’

Puthiniloy publisher Shamal Paul also echoed Monirul and said that the house would bring only 52 new titles this year which was above 100 in previous years.

Dhaka University student Ismet Zarin said, ‘I usually collect the catalogues from the publishing houses in the first two weeks to make my buying list. I have already collected some catalogues and found very low number of new titles compared to previous years.’

University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh student Sakibul Hasan said that he came to the fair to buy some new books but found a few new books on Tuesday.

The seven-member task force on the day sent a letter to the fair organising committee to scrap the stall allocation of Rabeya Book House and Grantha Prokash for violating the book fair guidelines.

‘The two publishing houses were displaying and selling other publishing houses’ books without being the distributors of those books,’ additional cultural affairs secretary and the task force president Asim Kumar Dey told New Age.

‘They had many pirated books and books without the International Standard Book Number at the stalls. We gave them warning on January 3 but they did not follow the fair guidelines,’ added Asim.

The task force also warned seven more publishing houses of violating the guidelines, said Asim.

The fair organising committee scrapped stall allocation to Kaldhara due to failing to complete stall setup works on time.

The fair will open its doors to visitors at 3:00pm on Wednesday.