New Delhi World Book Fair 2024: A multi-lingual world in books

The New Delhi World Book Fair 2024 has brought together book lovers, authors, publishers, and scholars from around the world. More than 2000 stalls and 1000 publishers from 40 countries, the book fair organised by Ministry of Education has seen heavy footfall in last seven days

For 50 years now, the New Delhi World Book Fair (NDWBF) has brought together thousands of book lovers, readers, authors, publishers, scholars, educationists, students and literary enthusiasts from all over the world. This year too a mammoth crowd has been gathering at the newly constructed International Convention Centre at Pragati Maidan — home to the nine-day long World Book Fair-2024.

Over the past seven days nearly 15 lakh visitors have roamed the colossal venue where more than 1,000 publishers from 40 countries including United Kingdom, Argentina, Spain, France, Turkey, Iran, Italy, UAE, Nepal, Bangladesh and more, have put up 2,000-plus stalls.

Organised by the National Book Trust (NBT) under the Ministry of Education, this year’s book fair celebrates the mosaic of Indian languages under the theme Bahubhashi Bharat – Ek Jeevant Parampara (Multilingual India – A Living Tradition), with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as the guest country fostering cultural exchange, literary discourses, and dialogues among the two nations.

Prof. Milind Sudhakar Marathe, Chairman, NBT-India, says the NDWBF is a platform for promoting intellectual dialogue and readership.

Anindya Chatterjee, who migrated from Kolkata to the capital for work remembers book fairs as the apex of childhood magic. He has not missed a single edition of the NDWBF in the last 30 years. “I am delightfully blown away by how it gets bigger each year; the extensive display of books across genres, the huge halls throughout the expo, the diverse crowd, invigorating sessions and a host of other cultural activities,” he says.

“It is the beauty of the NDWBF,” says NBT director Yuvraj Malik, “where the inherent fabric of India’s unity manifests itself through its diverse spectrum of languages, dialects and cultures, but one expression. The melting pot of art, literature, knowledge and culture here appeals to national and international audiences.”

The fair is divided into special zones hosting 500 academic discussions, book launches, meet-the-author corners and networking opportunities with publishers and exhibitors to push and contribute to the rising literary interest among populations and use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to expand the publishing business across nations.