Bookaholics appeased

by Aditha Dissanayake

The opening ceremony of the 9th Colombo International Book Fair, organised by the Sri Lanka Book Publishers' Association in cooperation with the Booksellers' and Importers' Association of Ceylon took place yesterday at Sirimavo Bandaranaike Exhibition Centre with Dr. A. T. Ariyaratne as the Chief Guest and S. U. Wijeratne, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Education as the Guest of Honour.

At the event the five authors who were recommended for the Swarna Pusthaka ward 2006 were presented with a cash prize of Rs. 100,000 each.

This decision was revealed at the first ever Swarna Pusthaka Awards ceremony held at the BMICH, equally distributing the prize money, of Rs. 500,000, the highest monetary award given in the history of Sri Lankan literature, among the five winners; Erawwala Nandimitra, Karunadasa Srooriyarachchi, Daya Dissanayake, K. Karunadhara Alwis and Sriyani Ekanayake.

Saying that the sun does not rise on a nation that does not have intellectuals, Ranjith Samaranayake, President of the BPA emphasised the need to improve the reading habits and helping readers living far away from Colombo e.g. in Badulla the district with the highest reading habit in Sri Lanka.

Secretary of the association, Upali Wanigasooriya said, having begun the book fair nine years ago with only 29 stalls today it is a joy to have around 400 publishers taking part in the event. "At the first book fair it was with immense difficulty that we found twenty-nine publishers. Since then we have come a long way".

Colombo's premier Annual International Book Fair concludes on September 16.