In the august presence of Sudhangshu Sekhar Dey, Tridib Kumar Chatterjee, Sujata Sen, Raju Barman and others, the curtain raiser for the 7^th Kolkata Literature Festival was organized.

The key note address at the Kolkata Literature Festival will be given by veteran actor Soumitra Chatterjee and he will speak about little magazines and how it has contributed to the intellectual well being of Bengal. This year there will be a Nabaneeta Dev Sen Memorial Lecture focusing on children’s literature. This will be delivered by her daughter Nandana Dev Sen. There will also be a session on Nabaneeta Dev Sen. There will be cultural programs too. Usha Uthup, Debojyoti Mishra and Sourendro-Soumyojit will be performing at the festival.

Four books have been translated to Bengali from Russian. They are Bigyapone mele na, Frosia Karovina, Ek Theke Dosh Prem and Rangberong er Tushar.

The Ashok Sarkar Memorial Lecture will be delivered by Vadim Polonsky on 30^th January. The same day will be celebrated as Russian day.

On 2^nd February, Children’s day will be celebrated in the fairground premises. Bangladesh day will be celebrated on 9^th February.

Gate no 1 will be replica of Bolshoi Theatre of Russia,Gate no 4 will be replica of Sanskrit College, Gate no 3 will be replica of India Gate, gate no 6 will be the Biswa Bangla gate and Gate no 9 will be replica of gate of Jorasanko Thakurbari.

For the first time, the book fair has a mascot named Tyto. The mascot is actually an owl.

Some of the eminent personalities who will be visiting the book fair are Prof Emili Puig Vilaro of Spain, Gladys Mercedes Acevedo, Marcelina De Haro, Esther Simon and others.

The roads and lanes of the Book fair has been named after departed authors of Russia and Bengal.

The fair will be inaugurated by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Vladimir Grigoriev, Aleksei Idamkin, Vadim Polonsky, Nrisingha Prasad Bhaduri and Hon’ble Ministers of West Bengal and other guests. The inauguration will be held tomorrow at 6 pm.

Priyanka Dutta