Colombo Int'l Book Fair, 'showing remarkable growth'

Suraj A Bandara

The 13th Colombo International Book Fair is scheduled to be held from September 17 to 25 at the Bandaranaike Memorial International Conference Hall (BMICH), with 120 publishing companies participating and featuring 420 stalls of local and foreign books.

"The growth of the Colombo International Book Fair year-on-year is phenomenal," co-organizer of the event BMICH Director General Bandula Ekanayake said.

'He was addressing the media at the BMICH recently.

'This is an event that any international convention organizer would be proud to be associated with, that provides the reading public in Sri Lanka a world class exhibition of titles for reasonable prices.'

He said this is not a profit making venture, but a means to encourage the people to read more when they seem to be moving away from the reading habit and resorting to electronic equipment.

The consecutive 13th year book fair has been the most prominent exhibition held in the country.'

Organized by the Sri Lanka Book Publishers' Association together with the Booksellers' Association of Ceylon and the Samastha Lanka Poth Velenda Sangamaya with the BMICH as co-organizers, the Colombo International Book Fair 2011 will be a showcase for book publishers, booksellers, author-publishers, sellers of educational aids and material and providers of IT services.