New books on rise, poetry, novels remain far above

Md Moniruzzaman :
New books are being added to the booklist every day and the number of new titles rose to 1,300 on the thirteenth consecutive day of ‘Amar Ekushey Book Fair’, where the Poetry books are dominating the number of publication figures like previous years.
Though the figure of the poetry books is bigger than any other categories, but these books are still not able to catch the public interest.
“Today, the qualities of the poetry books are not so good. Besides, novels have a character, an opportunity to create a thinking mind but poetry do not have this,” Istiaque, a student of Dhaka College, said.
Among the total number of books published in this year’s fair till Monday, highest 401 are collections of poems, followed by 234 novels, 77
short story books, 17 essay books, 21 research works, 57 biographies, 33 books on Liberation War, 12 plays, 23 books on science, 31 travelogues, 44 books on history, 12 books on politics and 13 books on health.
There were also nine books on Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, seven on satires, 15 on religion, 25 rhymes, 53 children’s books, 17 translations, three dictionaries, 22 science-fiction and 118 books on other categories. A number of 105 new titles were published on this day.
In 2022, a total of 3,416 new titles were published in this fair. Of which 1,060 were collections of poems, 501 books of novels and 467 books of essays.
In 2021, a total of 2,640 new books were published in the fair among which 898 were collections of poems and 1,585 were poetry books among 4,919 books in 2020.
Nyeem, stall attendee of Annoprokash, said, “A large crowd draws every day at the stalls but it’s only for novels or story books. A large number of poetry books have been published but the book-lovers are not too interested in buying this book.” Two discussions titled ‘Translation of Bangla Literature’ and ‘Bangla translation of Foreign Literature’ were held at the main stage of Bangla Academy.