For the joy of reading

The National Book Trust (NBT) is celebrating 60 years of NBT by hosting Asia’s largest book fair - New Delhi World Book Fair 2017 at Pragati Maidan from January 7 – 15. The fair will be inaugurated by Dr Mahendra Nath Pandey, Minister of State for Human Resources Development (Higher Education), with Dr Pratibha Ray, noted Odia author and Jnanpith awardee as the Guest of Honour and Tomasz Kozlowski, Ambassador of the delegation of the European Union to India as the Special Guest.

The theme of the fair this year is ‘Manushi’ which focuses on the writing on and by women. The basic idea is to project the diversity of writing by women and to bust the homogeneity of ‘women writers’. There will also be a display of portraits of 12 representative women scholars of the ancient and medieval India which have been developed for the 2017 calendar of National Book Trust. Baldeo Bhai Sharma, Chairman NBT said that Prakash Javadekar, Union Minister of Human Resource Development would inaugurate the Theme Pavilion on January 10.

To mark the occasion of 60 years of NBT, the Trust is putting up a special exhibit to showcase the their journey of promoting the culture of reading over the years. Besides the exhibit of archival photographs, a display of NBT’s best-sellers in various languages has also be arranged. The children’s pavilion will have storytelling sessions, workshops on creative writing and panel discussions organised by National Centre for Children’s Literature (NCCL) where the children will also get to interact with well known children’s authors.

Over 20 countries are participating in the foreign pavilion in the Fair at Hall no 7 A,B,C. The fair also provides a platform for B2B activities for publishers form India and abroad, which includes CEOSpeak on ‘The idea and business of creating culture of reading: Experiences and challenges across societies’. 

Over 40 publishers will be participating in New Delhi Rights Table- a 2day event, from India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Egypt, Georgia, USA, Kenya and UK.

Book lovers would also get the opportunity to interact with eminent authors and literary personalities at the Authors’ Corners at Reflections (Hall no 10 – 11), Conversations (Hall no 18), Lekhak Manch (Hall no 12 – 12A), Sahitya Manch (Hall no 8), and International Events Corner (Hall 7A). Authors will engage with the visitors through reading sessions and discussions other than interactions.

Baldeo Bhai Sharma, Chairman NBT, has also proposed the idea of making entry free in the book fair from the coming year to encourage enthusiasm of reading among the youth.

Spread over 32000 square meters the New Delhi World Book Fair will witness the participation of nearly 800 publishes form across the country and abroad in various languages.