Publications at Boi Mela still not back to pre-Covid levels

The curtain has fallen on the longest Boi Mela ever, with a total of 6 million patrons having visited the fair, and a total of 3751 new books being published at the fair. Book sales amounted to an estimated Tk 60 crore.

Data collected from the Bangla Academy about new book publications show that the number of new book publications decreased remarkably after the Covid-19 pandemic, and even though they rose this year from last year, they are still not back to pre-Covid levels.

In 2019, a total of 4834 new books were published from the stage of the book fair. In 2020 the number of new book publications saw an increase to 4919. In 2021's book fair, the first after the pandemic, the number of new book publications decreased to 2640. However, after 2021, the number of new book publications started seeing gradual but very low increment.

In 2022, the number of new books climbed to 3416 from 2640, and 2023's book fair witnessed a total of 3730 new books being unveiled. This year, slightly increasing, the number of new book publications hit the number 3751.

Collected data shows that 144 new books, related to Bangabandhu, were published in 2020's book fair. In 2021, Bangabandhu related books decreased nearly twice than 2020's fair hitting the publication number 51 and after the year in 2022, 77 books related to Bangabandhu were unveiled from the book unveiling stage. In 2023 the number again decreased and marked the number 35 and this year only 27 Bangabandhu related books were published from the book unveiling stage of Amar Ekushey Book fair.

For poem category books, in 2020, 1585 new books were unveiled from the book unveiling stage which decreased to 898 in 2021. After 2021, the number of poem related book publications climbed to 1060. Then in 2023 it climbed to 1257 and this year it again went down to 1192.

Aside from this, the number of new research work publications from the book fair also seem to have decreased over the last five years. In 2020, a total of 112 research related books were published from the book fair ground. In 2021, the number fell to 47. However, in 2022 the number of new research publications was 102. But research-based book publication numbers again fall to 75 and remain the same since 2023.

For liberation war category books, in 2020, a total of 152 new books were published from the book unveiling stage. In 2021 the number of newly published books of this category was 84. In 2022, the number of liberation war related books was 102. After that the number of new books of this category remained the same hitting the number 75.

On the same way, the differences of the numbers of new book publication among other categories like story books, Novels, health related books, translated books, drama, science category books were observed from the found data which indicate that covid-19 pandemic affected Amar Ekushey book publication negatively.