Shine Delhi

Bibliophiles throng the New Delhi World Book Fair to catch glimpses of their favourite authors


New Delhi : “Books are going to be with us forever. Even though e-books are popular, the feeling of picking up and reading a physical book cannot be surpassed. The immense collection of literature that is present here at the New Delhi World Book Fair gives an impetus to   conversations that make us smarter, tolerant, empathetic and knowledgable,” said popular author Kupreet Yadav in a session at the New Delhi World Book Fair 2023. Adding to the ethos of the Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav theme, he enthralled the audience with anecdotes from his book The Battle of Rezang La that covers the historic battle of 1962 when 120 Indian soldiers fought to the end & wiped out over 1,000 Chinese troops. Theme Pavilion saw another important session – the release of the book “Dr. Mahendralal Sarkar“ by Hon’ble Minister of State for Education, Dr. Subhash Sarkar.

It came as a welcome surprise for lovers of international literature when a session at the International Events Corner was conducted in Hindi. Oscar Pujol, Director of Instituto Cervantes and an admirer of the Indian culture participated in a session on ‘Indo-Spanish Literary Exchange’. “Hindi, with its huge number of speakers, has the potential to become a global language. You should take pride in talking in your language and only then can it reach the status of an International language,” Mr Pujol said.

It was yet another exceptional day at the Children’s Pavilion as well with a series of fun-filled and engaging sessions for the young readers that creatively challenged them. Children learned the craft of Stamp Designing with Sankha Samanta, who in his illustrious career has designed over 400 stamps. Master storytellers Usha Chabra and Ambalika Bhatt conducted two storytelling workshops for the children to tickle their imaginations and stimulate creative expression. An Inter-school quiz competition was also organised for the students.

New Delhi World Book Fair attracts participation from major publishing houses across the globe, engaging platform for sharing ideas and enhancing literary understanding. This year more than 35 countries have marked their presence at the fair and have been organising seminars, discussions, and many such literary activities at the International Events Corner.  A presentation on the Grants Programme of the Translation Institute was organised by the Institute of Literary Translations (Moscow).

Daily events with popular authors and litterateur across various Indian languages and English are being organised at the Lekhak Manch and the Authors’ Corner. Apart from various sessions and discussion, Hindi titles “Main aur Tum” and “Ravi se Yamuna Tak” were also released at the Lekhak Manch. A launch event for Dr. R.D Mohan’s book “The Story of a Little Boy” also took place.

Earlier in the day, Hon’ble Governor of Bihar, Shri Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar and Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad, Member of Lok Sabha also visited the fair.

New Delhi Book Fair 2023 is being organised by National Book Trust, India in collaboration with ITPO at the iconic Pragati Maidan from 25 February to 5 March 2023. Entry is free for children in school uniform, senior citizens and differently-abled. Tickets are available at select Metro Stations and online at insider.in


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