26 years on, the Book Fair is back for a new chapter
Dinesh Kulatunga
‘The Book Fair’ is an annual tradition many of us have grown up with, graduating from The Very Hungry Caterpillar to Enid Blyton and then Agatha Christie. The Fair conjures a host of nostalgic memories not the least being just part of the crowds or sharing evening sundaes or achcharu with friends under the giant nuga trees…
As the literary month beckons this year too, the stalls will be up and the crowds will return to the BMICH. Ahead of the gala, we met up with the main organiser - President of the Book Publishers’ Association Dinesh Kulatunga, already up to his ears in work.
The main novelty this year, he says, will be that the spatial organization will be neater with just four main permanent buildings instead of the complicated maze of tents. There will also be many reading activities for school and university students in conjunction with Clean Sri Lanka, apart from many book launches.
Logistically, the biggest challenge has been accommodating more than 500 book stalls, says Dinesh, while there is demand for many more.
“This time, we will have more than 20 foreign stalls and they will not just be in Hall ‘A’ as previously but dispersed in other halls too,” says Dinesh. The food stalls, however, will all be in one place.
The bestsellers at the fair are usually the new Sinhala novels, but parents and students also flock for stationery. This year, there will be a 20% discount on all items of stationery, says Dinesh.
The fair is ready to welcome around 1.2 million to 1.5 million visitors, and while the entrance fee is Rs. 20, a family of about five or six members can just buy two tickets, while schoolchildren and university students go free. Sri Lanka Telecom and PickMe have arranged digital ticketing as well.
The resilient book fair weathered COVID (they only missed two years) and the economic crisis. Even when the pandemic was thick in the air in 2022, with the help of the Health Ministry they held a successful edition. “People still wanted to come,” recalls Dinesh.
Last year (2024) was particularly successful says Dinesh, surprisingly, as in January that year an 18 percent tax was imposed on importing and selling books. Publishers however had old stocks so readers could make use of lower prices.
All the money from entrance tickets of the fair go to the Daru Diriya scholarship fund for needy students. “Every year we give more or less twenty scholarships from primary school up to university level.” From 2022 another new project was begun where books are purchased from the publishers and donated to school libraries. In 2023 twenty schools in the Southern Province benefited and in 2024, 40 schools in the North Central Province. “This year we donated books to 60 school libraries in Uva, to a total value of Rs. 22 million.”
Free shuttle buses will operate from Borella, Bambalapitiya and Town Hall to the BMICH. A postal stamp will also be issued to commemorate what is after all an annual national gathering.
Dinesh discloses that while now they have only the Kandy Book Fair for outstation readers, they are considering at least one more from next year, “maybe in a place like Batticaloa or Anuradhapura,” to connect with more rural readers.
The Colombo International Book Fair will happen at the BMICH from September 27 to October 6 from 9 a.m. till 9 p.m.
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