French pavilion to be largest of its kind at KIBF 2018

Kolkata: The French pavilion at the 42nd Kolkata International Book Fair (KIBF), that will be held at Salt Lake Central Park, will be the largest theme country pavilion in the fair's history. France is the theme country for this year's book fair, which will be inaugurated by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Francoise Nyssen, Minister of Culture and Communication, France, on January 30.

"The theme pavilion, covering a 5,000 square feet area, has been the highest in KIBF till date. This year, however, the theme pavilion will be of 14,000 square feet. There will be nine entry and exit gates and the majority of these gates will be replicas of French architecture in the country, like that in Chandannagore, Hooghly and Puducherry," said Tridib Chatterjee, general secretary of the Publisher's and Book Sellers Guild, which organises the KIBF.

Damien Syed, Consulate General of France in Kolkata, said that the pavilion will be of special attraction in the Book Fair. "We will be having three different sections: innovation, creativity and partnership, that will depict the idea that India and France are working together for developing bilateral relations between the two countries. The pavilion will be named 'The Experience'," Syed said. The use of most modern forms of digital and multimedia technologies will be an added attraction of the pavilion. There will be three halls in the fair, that will be named after Priya Ranjan Das Munshi, Rabishankar Bal and cartoonist Chandi Lahiri.

It may be mentioned that the state government has acquired an additional 4.5 acres of land in the fair ground and developed and beautified it for KIBF. There will be an additional 175 shuttle buses for ferrying book lovers to and from the fairground during the fair, that will be held from January 31 to February 11.

"The number of stalls in the book fair will be 580 and little magazine stalls will be 200 in number," Sudhansu Dey, president of KIBF said.

Soumitra Chatterjee will be awarded a special award for his contribution to films, jointly by the Guild and CESC at the inaugural programme of the book fair. France's Legion of Honour will be handed over to Chatterjee on the same day on January 30 by Nyssen.