26 years on, a day at the Book Fair is a must
The lure of books: A wide array to choose from. Pix by M.A. Pushpa Kumara
They mill in their thousands around the BMICH, enjoying the crisp smell of paper in the air. The carnival feel is hard to miss and for many, it’s a whole day’s outing.
The Colombo International Book Fair, now in its 26th year will take a bow tomorrow. With more than 500 exhibitors, many book launches, literary events, performances and fringe events, it’s been a great ‘summer of books’ this year too.
Browsers come from far and wide. We spotted Chandima Priyadarshani seated contentedly, cradling her big bagful of books after a day’s wandering. She’s from Pasyala and it’s the first time she’s been to the fair.
“We had long been wanting to visit; last time I sent my son and this year the whole family came.” Chandima said they bought ‘A’ Level books for her daughter, novels for her husband and Buddhist texts for herself.
“We had a wonderful time and prices were fair – with good discounts,” she said.
Vinudi Prabuddhika (17) from Ratnapura, dossing on the floor against a stall with her mother and brother, said “for us ‘A’ Level students, it’s hard to find all requisite books from one place in our area. We were able to buy everything I needed today – with good discounts up to 20%… We’ve been coming down every year since I was in Grade 7 (some five years now)…”
The big booksellers are the main stakeholders so we headed to the Vijitha Yapa stall to meet the busy Nuwan Jayantha, bookshop manager. Sales, he says, are good so far, but this year they won’t have their large secondhand stall because they are no longer importing magazines. Taxes on importing books meant they no longer bring down foreign periodicals. “We used to import 200 different magazines, but are now down to just The Economist,” he shrugs.
The booksellers: Deen and right, Nuwan
The secondhand booksellers draw a lot of crowds given their eclectic selection so we went to Deen the Bookman, where Mr. Deen is a fixture assisting his many eager clients. “Sales are good for us; children’s books and novels are the fastest sellers. ‘Spend low, buy more’ is our slogan now. With the current exorbitant prices of books, we are the people who can give reasonable rates. So it’s a service that we provide,” he says.
The bibliophiles tend to head to the secondhand stalls more with the Maradana bookshops also holding their own. The lure of finding an unexpected ‘gem’ in such places is enticing.
Happy with their haul: Chandima Priyadarshani and right, Vinudi Prabuddhika
The Central Cultural Fund stall is an annual fixture but not everyone visits given they sell only their own publications and replicas of historical objects, yet they have such interesting historical treatises so we dropped by. Latha Udawatte, Officer in Charge, Publications, CCF, said the weekend had crowds but there are fewer visitors on weekdays. By last Monday noon they had sales amounting to more than a
Rs. 100,000.
Stationery sellers too get their share of attention. One of the larger stalls is DSL Enterprises, selling an array of items. Sales assistant Kaushani Dewmini said this year’s stationery sales are less than last year but nonetheless sales had amounted to about Rs. 1.5 million by around Monday noon.
Other statistics from the Book Publishers’ Association complete the picture: An average of 120,000 visitors a day on weekdays, with the organisers expecting a record crowd this weekend as the Fair winds up on Monday, the 6th. A triumph for an industry painted with gloom and doom by many.
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