With Great Britain as the focal theme country, the upcoming Kolkata book fair is set to bring alive works of English poet and playwright William Shakespeare and Welsh poet Dylan Thomas.
British Council's Director (east India) Sujata Sen said their theme for the book fair was 'Knowledge is Great' and would focus on ideas, culture and writing. "It is the 100th birth anniversary of Welsh poet Dylan Thomas and we will do an event on Walking Cities by bringing two exciting Welsh writers to Kolkata to understand the city. They will walk with two Indian writers around the city before the book fair and then present something inspired by the city. It will be on how they understand, absorb and respond to the city through their writings," she said.
To mark Shakespeare's 451st birth anniversary, they would do an event on how his works have been interpreted differently over time from country to country. "For the inaugural ceremony, the musical programme will be a joint Indo-UK production," Sen said. Storytellers would entertain kids through workshops.
The 39th edition of the International Kolkata Book Fair would run from January 28 to February 8, next year. The three-day Kolkata Literature Festival, which would run inside the book fair premises from February 6, would have famous Pakistani-British author Qaisra Shahraz, writer of The Holy Woman, Madras Cafe author Prakash Belawadi and Ashok Banker, the writer of Prince of Ayodhya.
Book fair organiser Tridib Chatterjee said they were expecting a Nobel laureate from the UK at the inaugural ceremony. As the theme country was Great Britain, the number of English titles present in the fair would increase by 75%, he said.
Other participating nations would include Bangladesh, the US, France, Germany, Japan, among others. As it goes tech-friendly for the first time, the organisers have developed an Android mobile application to help book lovers locate book stalls in the fairground.
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