The International Kolkata Book Fair happens to be the biggest festival in our state after Durga Puja. The upcoming 48th International Kolkata Book Fair will commence from 28 January and will continue till the 9 February 2025. Like previous years, the fair will be inaugurated by the Hon’ble Chief Minister of West Bengal Smt. Mamata Banerjee. Eminent poets, authors and other scholars will be present as guests of honour at the inauguration. Venue: Boimela Prangan, Karunamoyee, Salt Lake.

At the very outset, we would like to express our deep gratitude towards Hon’ble Chief Minister of West Bengal Smt. Mamata Banerjee. We are grateful to the various departments of West Bengal Government including Urban and Municipal Affairs Department, KMDA, Information & Cultural Affairs Department, Bidhannagar Police, Kolkata Police and Bidhannagar Municipality for their overall cooperation and support to the Book Fair.

As you know, currently the International Kolkata Book Fair is the world’s largest attended non-trade book festival. Twenty-seven lakh book lovers visited the last book fair in 2024 and the book sales amounted to Rs 23 crores. As happy as we are at this astounding success, we are also a bit worried. Many new publishers have applied to participate in the upcoming book fair, but as the size of the fairground remains the same, we deeply regret to inform that the number of stalls cannot be increased from that of the last year. We are planning to make the fairground more visitors friendly.

We are very excited that for the first time in the history of the International Kolkata Book Fair, Germany, a country with rich cultural heritage and literary legacy will be the Focal Theme Country in the International Kolkata Book Fair 2025.

In this context we would like to mention that the idea of organising the Kolkata Book Fair for the first time in 1976 came from Germany’s iconic Frankfurt Book Fair. The founder-members of Publishers & Booksellers Guild were regular visitors of the Frankfurt Book Fair. At a later stage, representatives from Frankfurt Book Fair also visited the International Kolkata Book Fair. Also, in 1984 and in 2006, when India was the Theme Country of the FBF, Guild participated there as the representative organisation of publishers and authors of Eastern India.

Today, we have among us Mr Simon Kleinpass, Vice Consul of Germany in Kolkata and Ms Astrid Wege, Director, Goethe Institute, Kolkata. We will hear from them some interesting news about their participation as a focal theme in the book fair.

Like every year, Great Britain, USA, France, Italy, Spain, Peru, Argentina, Colombia and other Latin American Countries are participating in the upcoming book fair. Besides, there are publications of other states of India, such as Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Bihar, Assam, Jharkhand, Telangana, Kerala, Odisha, etc. As always, there will be the Little Magazine Pavilion, the Children’s Pavilion and other such attractions.

One of the highlights of the International Kolkata Book Fair, the Kolkata Literature Festival, KLF, will be held in February 2025.