New Delhi: The much-awaited celebration of literature in the national capital, the New Delhi World Book Fair (NDWBF), will begin on February 10 with ‘Multilingual India: A Living Tradition’ as its theme, the National Book Trust (NBT) announced on Thursday.
To be inaugurated by Minister of Education Dharmendra Pradhan at Pragati Maidan’s Bharat Mandapam on Saturday, the book fair will witness participation of over 1000 publishers across nationalities and languages.
The Union minister will also launch the National Digital Library at the event.
Talking about this year’s theme, NBT chairperson Milind Sudhakar Marathe said that the aim is to honour the “multilingual fabric” of India through the fair.
“India has a rich diversity of languages. In Schedule 8, there are 22 languages listed but we don’t limit ourselves to that. We have got a number of languages, dialects and they are all living, they are used day-to-day in different parts of this country. Those languages and dialects have their own rich heritage of their literature,” Marathe said at a press conference.
He added that the diverse range of languages and dialects have their own “contributions in the literature of this country and play a role in national integration also”.
The theme pavilion at the book fair will host book launches, author interactions, and panel discussions in different Indian languages and dialects. The NDWBF will also start a new initiative, titled ‘Festival of Festivals’, which will host different literature festivals from across the country under one roof.
A total of seven literature festival, including Ahmedabad International Literature Festival, Bharat Literature Festival, The Great Indian Books Tour, and Pragati Literature Festival will take part in the fair.
Apart from hosting Saudi Arabia as the guest country, the book fair will see the participation of more than 40 countries, including the UK, Austria, France, Spain, Turkey, Italy, Russia, Taiwan, Iran, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal.
Authors, publishers and literary enthusiasts from different parts of the world will be able to interact with each other and exchange ideas over the topics of culture, literature, traditions and history over the course of 10 days. With a long list of performers, the NDWBF will also host plays, poetry, music and dance performance every day.
Folk fusion band ‘Dashugs’ from Ladakh, Sanskrit rapper Shlovij, indie folk fusion band Yugm, Sadho Band, Shadaj Band, Jasu Khan and Group from Rajasthan, and Kerala-based rock band Thaikkudam Bridge will be some of leading performers at the event.
