India is Guest of Honour Country at the ongoing Seoul International Book Fair
Jitin Prasada, Minister of State for Human Resource Development (HRD), Government of India, will lead a 40 plus strong delegation of Indian publishers, authors and senior government officials to Seoul on the occasion of India being invited as Guest of Honour country at Seoul International Book Fair (June 19-23), organised by Korean Publishers’ Association (KPA). The Guest of Honour Presentation of India coincides with the 40th year anniversary celebrations of the establishment of diplomatic ties between India and South Korea. National Book Trust is Guest of Honour at the presentation programmes.
The Indian delegation includes A Sthumadhavan, Chairman, NBT, Veena Ish, Joint Secretary in Ministry of HRD, who heads the Book Promotion and Copyright Division, MA Sikandar, Director, NBT, KS Rao, Secretary, Sahitya Akademi, representatives of 23 Indian publishers, including book exporters and distributors, government bodies such as IGNCA, NBT, Sahitya Akademi etc. A delegation of four authors as part of Sahitya Akademi team, namely — leeladhar Jagoori (Hindi writer), Dhruba Jyoti Borah (Assamese writer), Basavaraj Kagudi Channabasayya (Kannadawriter) and Moirangthem Priyobrata Singh (Manipuri) — and two children authors as part of NBT-KPA understanding, namely Geeta Dharmarajan and Suddhosatwa Basu (author-artist), will be participating in reading programmes and discussions.
IndiaPavilion
A well-designed India Pavilion spreads over an area of 1000 square metres. Conceptualised and designed by the editorial and art cell of NBT, a replica of Sanchi Gate will serve as the main gate of the Pavilion. The replica in fibre, sculpted by eminent sculptor Biswajit Majumdar, is five metres high. Right in the centre of the pavilion, a replica of the Gandhara style standing Buddha of Gupta period, created by renowned sculptor Purnendu Dey, is being showcased to underline the common Buddhist heritage of the two countries.
In all, more than 2500 titles of 23 participating Indian publishers, besides nearly 800 titles of thematic exhibitions representing the publications of nearly 75 Indian publishers focussed on ‘Books on and by Mahatma Gandhi’, ‘Nobel laureates from India’, ‘Hundred Years of Cinema,’ ‘Children’s literature’, ‘Indian literature in English Translation,’ ‘General Interest Books on India’ will be put on display at the pavilion. The Kyobo bookstore, one of the largest chain of bookstores in Korea, has expressed its desire to sell India-related books on discounted price to the Korean visitors to India pavilion. The participating publishers are drawn from children publishing, science & technology, literature, ideology fields etc.
Apart from books on themes as above, an exhibition of posters related to them, an exhibition of paintings of eminent contemporary Indian painters titled ‘Reading Spaces’, Illustrators’ Wall, an audio-visual corner with facility to watch documentaries on Indian art, culture, literature, tourism with Korean sub-titling/dubbing is another feature of India Pavilion, and screening of the film Devdas with Korean sub-title are some of the special features of the pavilion.
Special publications
A graphic novel for children titled Sri Ratna & Kim Suro: The legend of an Indian Princess in Korea (story by N Parthasarathi, novelist and former ambassador of India to South Korea; graphics and illustrations by Soumitra Dasgupta, artist and filmmaker;) has been published by National Book Trust on the occasion which will be released at the inaugural programme of India Pavilion.
NBT has published 10 of its titles for children in Korean translation for free distribution among children below 12 years at SIBF under NBT’s ‘Gift a Book’ objective. The titles are: Holidays Have Come: story by Rabindranath Tagore; Illustrations by Partha Sengupta; Animals You Can’t Forget: story by Ruskin Bond; Illustrations by Debasish Deb; Ravan Remedy: concept & art by Suddhasatwa Basu; Colour: concept and art by Ravi Paranjape; Ripe & Ready: story by Sukumar Ray; illustrations by Debasish Deb; Punti’s wedding: story by Dipanwita Roy; art by Debabrata Ghosh; A Helping Hand: concept and art by Samaresh Chatterjee; Tails: story by Hydrose Aaluwa; art by Atanu Roy; Who is SharperIJ: Story by Gunamani Nath; art by Durlabh Bhattacharjee; Chika-Chik-Chik: concept and art by Jeyanthi Manokaran.
MoUs
NBT and KPA are entering into an MoU to participate on reciprocal basis in international books fairs being organised by them, namely, New Delhi World Book Fair by NBT and Seoul International Book Fair by KPA. And to promote the interests of publishers in both countries for mutual benefits.
Programmes
NBT and KPA have organised business to business programmes — an Indo-Korean Digital Publishing Forum and an Indo-Korean Publishers’ roundtable focussed on children’s literature. To be chaired by Robert S Kim, CEO, iPortfolio Inc, Korea, the Digital Publishing Forum will have Chul-Beom Kim, CEO, i-ePub, Tae-Woo Kim, CEO, Moglue, Ajay Shukla, Vice President, McGraw-Hill Education, Ravi Dee Cee, CEO, DC Books, MA Sikandar, Director, NBT as speakers. An illustrators’ workshop with 25 Korean school children is being organised by NBT & KPA with support from Indian Cultural Centre (ICC), Embassy of India wherein the children will illustrate Dharmarajan’s story My Umma’s Sari under the supervision of the eminent author-artist Basu.Sahitya Akademi is organising a symposium ‘My World, My Writing’ and reading sessions with the delegation of authors being taken by the Akademi. A panel discussion on ‘Gandhi and Tagore in Korea’ with presentations by eminent Korean scholars Prof Huh woo sung and Prof lee Jeong (moderator-Prof Pankaj Mohan), is also being organised by NBT in association with ICC. An Indian cookery show is also on the cards.