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Organisers Of Bengaluru Book Festival Expect Footfalls To Rise Over Long Weekend, But Absence Of Indic Stalls Disappoints
Readers at a book fest
Organisers of the Bengaluru Book Festival are hoping that footfalls will pick up over the long weekend starting on Thursday (October 18) as the festival has got off to a slow start, as reported by The Hindu.
The book festival began on 15 October and had over 287 stalls selling Telugu, Malayalam and Hindi books apart from English and Kannada.
The readers, however, have expressed their disappointment at the lack of Indic publishers not being part of the festival. “Book collectors and avid readers come to the festival not for mainstream books, but for those from Indic publishers who are not easily accessible. Navayana, Orient Blackswan, LeftWord Books, Zubaan Books, Hampi University Press, among others, are not part of the festival. Lesser-known but well-established publishers from Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu that were part of earlier editions of the festival, too, are not participating this time,” said Guruprasad D Narayana, book collector and seller. Meanwhile, the participation of Kannada publishers has also dropped.
Several publishers including Oxford University Press, Hachette India, Sage Books, Penguin, Rupa Books, Speaking Tiger, Tamil publisher Kalachuvadu, and Malayalam publisher DC Books have put up stalls at the festival, which is something the festival has experienced for the first time, said Ramachandran. 77 publishers will be participating in the festival for the first time, he added.
“From Thursday to Sunday, we have holidays, and we expect footfalls to increase dramatically. We hope booksellers do good business and come back next year,” he said, while emphasising that the organisers were happy with the response the festival has garnered.
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