KOCHI: The VJT Hall is overflowing with red-covered books, with Chintha Publishers organising a bookfair to commemorate Karl Marx’s 200th birth anniversary. The four-day event featuring books from more than 60 publishing houses was inaugurated by CPM state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan on Saturday. The book ‘Marx and Marpappa’ written by Dr Sebastian Paul was released at the event.
“We have spent a long time collecting Left-oriented books from various publishers for this event. Now we have almost all popular Leftist authors here,” said Sivakumar, general manager of Chintha Publishers. The book expo has over 5,000 Leftist titles in English and Malayalam.
Apart from popular Communist books by Karl Marx, Che Guevara, Lenin and Leon Trotsky, new titles from Indian tribal and Dalit revolutionaries are also featured in the exhibition. Many anti-fascist, socialist and anarchist titles are also on sale. Books are sold at a discount of up to 25 per cent in this exhibition.
In addition to hardcore Communist literature such as Communist Manifesto, Das Kapital, The State and Revolution and How to Read Marx, Che’s ‘Motorcycle Diaries’ and George Orwell’s ‘1984’ are also on sale in this book fair.
Seminars by Left-wing personalities are scheduled at 4 pm on all days of the exhibition. These talks will be attended by members of many service organisations and farmers unions across the state.The event will host Ashok Dhawale, who is known for the famous ‘Kisan Long March’ from Nashik to Mumbai. He will be presenting a seminar on the subject of ‘peasant struggles’ on Monday. The Malayalam translation of the book of the same name will also be released that day.
Finance Minister T M Thomas Isaac would address the gathering on Tuesday. A lecture on agricultural development would be presented by activist Dr B Ekbal. A book by K V Mohan Kumar on the life of the Communist revolutionary P Krishna Pillai would also be released then. “This bookfair is aimed to benefit the youth and the academia,” said Sivakumar.