Amar Ekushay Book Fair 2020

Client: Bangla Academy
Location: Suhrawardi Udyan, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Photography: Reesham Shahab Tirtho​​​​​​​ & Al-Amin Abu Ahmed Ashraf-Dolon
Year: 2020

The Ekushey Book Fair or “Amar Ekushe Grantha Mela” meaning ”Immortal Book Fair of the Twenty-first[of February]’, popularly known as Ekushey Boi Mela is the national book fair of Bangladesh. It is arranged each year by Bangla Academy and takes place for the whole month of February in Dhaka. This event is dedicated to the martyrs who died on 21 February 1952 in a demonstration calling for the establishment of Bengali as one of the state languages of former East Pakistan.

The Amar Ekushey Boi Mela has an emotional and cultural attachment to the people of Bangladesh. 2020 edition of the fair, the largest of its kind in Bangladesh, saw a record number of books launched. This year’s fair was dedicated to Father of Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

The murals were exclusively designed for the Writer’s Corner & Children’s Corner.

The Mural of Writer’s Corner depicts the road to freedom of Bangladesh from the Language movement of 1952 to the Liberation War of 1971, as well as the urban life and book readers.

The Children’s Corner mural comprises of children of different ages enjoying different activities like reading, playing, cycling, singing, angling, swimming, flying kite as well as characters from folk tales of Bengal. Another aspect of the mural was the forest life of the Sundarbans, one of the largest mangrove forests in the world and Liberation of Bangladesh.