The third edition of the Krithi International Book Fair and Knowledge Festival will be held at Marine Drive between February 6 and 16.
Littérateurs M.K. Sanu and M. Leelavati will declare the festival open at 6 p.m. on February 6. The public can visit the stalls from Thursday noon itself.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan will inaugurate the cultural meet held in connection with the event at 3 p.m. on February 15.
The State Co-operative Department is organising the event in association with the Sahitya Pravarthaka Co-operative Society (SPCS). Poet and president of SPCS Ezhacherry Ramachandran said that the historic literary festival of Central Kerala is set to become a huge success this time after its mesmerising first two editions.
A huge air-conditioned book exhibition hall is the venue of Krithi. Out of a total of 75,000 sq ft area built, the book exhibition hall alone has 46,000 sq ft area. A total of 150 publishers will display books in 250 stalls.
As in the previous editions, students from across the State will be given book coupons worth ₹1.5 crore under the scheme ‘one book for one child’ implemented through the local co-operative institutions.
State Co-operation Minister Kadakampally Surendran has said that Krithi aims at a sale of books worth ₹20 crore, including those given to the students. Apart from lakhs of Englsh and Malayalam books, this edition will have books from Bengali, Gujarati and Hindi.
Krithi has also declared a variety of contests and a handful prizes for both elders and students. For elders, there will be short film and photography contests while students will be confronted with reading, short poem writing, photo captioning and giving alternative name for novels contests. Another interesting feature of the event is the ‘crow drawing corner’ where students up to Standard IV can draw the crow which is the mascot of the event. The book festival venue will also host a photography exhibition, daily film screening, magic and a unique novel photography which will depict a novel in a series of photographs.
Krithi Knowledge Festival will be held on two stages having 10,000 sq ft area each from February 8 to 16. A total of 205 littérateurs and thinkers will take part in 68 sessions in the festival.
A special 8,000 sq ft stage has been set apart for the art fest to be held in the evenings from February 7 to 16.