KOCHI: The first edition of the Krithi International Book Festival by the state government will kick-off from March 1 at Marine Drive. The 10-day event will be inaugurated by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.
Minister for Cooperation, Tourism and Devaswom Kadakampally Surendran announced the event at a press conference here on Sunday. “The first-of-its-kind book festival in the state will be hosted in a 425 x 100 ft German-made fully air-conditioned hall to give due respect to books and organise a book fair of international standards,” he said.
Kadakampally said the festival will be a unique one considering it is being organised jointly “by the legendary cooperative and library movements of the state”. The festival will have four sections: General English; general Malayalam; science, technology and academic; and children, represented by nearly 80 global and Indian publishers, including Penguin Random House, Harper Collins, Permanent Black, Amazon Westland, Pan MacMillan, Orient BlackSwan, Grollier, Scholastic, DuckBill, Amar Chitra Katha, Children’s Book Trust and almost all the publishers from Kerala. The children’s section alone will have more than 1.5 lakh titles on display, said the minister.
After the formal inauguration by Pinarayi, Opposition Leader Ramesh Chennithala will launch the distribution of book coupons of the ‘A Book for Every Child’ scheme, followed by Prof K V Thomas MP launching the festival guide. Former Cultural Minister M A Baby will release the first volume of the SPCS’ new book: ‘Assembly Speeches of EMS’. Mayor Soumini Jain will offer the felicitation. G Sajith Babu of Kerala Cooperatives will deliver the vote of thanks.