Fluorescent lights flickered across rows of empty pavilions. A bookseller sat slumped against a stack of unsold novels, checking his phone for the third time in ten minutes. It was the fourth day of the Amar Ekushey Book Fair and he hadn’t sold a single book.
‘If this continues,’ he muttered to a colleague, ‘we won't even cover our iftar expenses.’
Country’s most cherished literary tradition is now teetering on the edge of irrelevance. A total of 42 new books have been submitted to the information center on Sunday.
This year’s fair didn’t just start late; it stumbled into existence like guests arriving disheveled to their own wedding. Originally set for February 1, later moved to February 25. Finally, on the night of February 24, organizers announced that it would open on February 26. Publishers had barely forty-eight hours’ notice. Many didn’t bother printing new titles. Why invest in uncertainty?
Drama didn’t end there. Poet Mohan Rayhan was announced as a Bangla Academy Award recipient, then abruptly had his prize suspended. After a theatrical press conference at Jatiya Press Club, he announced that he would accept the award but donate the prize money to struggling writers, which is a gesture both noble and deeply ironic in a country where even award-winning poets must make such sacrifices.
But the real tragedy isn’t the administrative chaos. It is what’s happening to the country’s book industry itself.
Walking through Suhrawardi Udyan on Sunday evening, the fair resembled a corpse. Twinkling lights adorned meticulously arranged stalls, but visitors drifted past like ghosts, purposeless and distracted. Most didn’t stop to browse. Those who did rarely bought anything. One major publisher reported selling TK 5000 worth of books on Friday and then less than TK 1000 on Saturday.
Little Magazine Corner, traditionally buzzing with young writers debating late into the night, stood desolate. Uneven ground, scattered stalls, dim lighting. It felt less like a literary gathering and more like the aftermath of Plassey, that haunting silence after a civilization collapses.
An eighteen-day fair (ending March 15) can barely be called a ‘month-long’ celebration anymore. And it may be among the last of its kind. With Ramadan falling in February for several years ahead, the fair’s traditional timing has become untenable. Publishers can’t predict when, or if, it will happen. New book releases have dropped. Sales have plummeted.
Yet the crisis runs deeper than scheduling. Country’s entire literary ecosystem is suffocating. Media outlets ignore literature. Schools don’t cultivate reading habits. The state offers no meaningful support beyond symbolic gestures. Vital foreign books remain untranslated into Bangla; essential Bangla works never reach international audiences.
Meanwhile, writers persist. bloodying themselves to produce work nobody buys, publishers losing money on books that disappear after the fair, readers scrolling through phones instead of turning pages.
Meanwhile, at Bangla Academy, intellectual life continues its rituals. On Sunday afternoon, scholars gathered to remember sculptor Hamiduzzaman Khan. Nasimul Khabir noted how Khan pioneered beyond metal, incorporating wood, stone, plastic, glass and concrete into sculptures that remain landmarks for present and future generations. “He was the successor to Novera Ahmed and Professor Abdur Razzak,” Khabir explained, ‘creating an extraordinary body of work across half a century while remaining a dedicated teacher.’
"The entire publishing industry faces a terrible threat," warns one literary observer, noting how uncertain political conditions over recent years made even sitting down to write unimaginable.
Crisis exposes uncomfortable truths about country’s literary ecosystem. Many publishers survive solely on book fair sales, like garment shops that endure year-round losses for one profitable Eid season. When the fair falters, the entire edifice wobbles. Compounding this, Bangladesh lacks publisher-writer professionalism, media attention to literature, literature-friendly educational institutions and government support. State-backed Bangla Academy exists nominally at best.
As evening prayers echo across Dhaka University area, Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s 150th birth anniversary awaits Sunday’s program.
Chatak bird keeps waiting. But in this month of fasting, even rain seems rationed.
NRE/AM
