International Book Fair:

Much ado about nothing

It is worthwhile, once again, to focus on the International Book Fair which by now, has become, perhaps, the biggest annual book exhibition in Sri Lanka. Since its inception, the book exhibition has been a kind of parley for book lovers, literary buffs and the book publishers who are the principal patrons of our annual fiesta of literature.

Apart from its literary value, the book exhibition, over the years, has assumed a character of a carnival with its numerous make-shift restaurants and mobile outlets of reputed brands of fast food makers. The venue BMICH is, perhaps, most appropriate for such a fiesta given its impressive infrastructure and the sheer vastness. It could accommodate a large number of people with little or no congestion.

Turnout of people in their thousands from diverse parts of the country to the exhibition this year could be attributed to several factors including the dawn of peace following the defeat of the LTTE by Sri Lankan forces. The civil war which lasted three decades has created a sense of insecurity on the part of the people at large. Though the people in the North and East are the most adversely affected among the Sri Lankans, war has deprived the country of decades of development and much needed steady economic growth. The economic consequence of the civil war has, perhaps, been seen in the spending habits of the people. Obviously people are more tight-fisted than ever before. Although a large number of people visited the exhibition, the number seems to be disproportionate to the volume of sales. It is because books may have come at the bottom of the list of priorities. First, second and the third on the list of priorities obviously occupy by food, clothing and paying of bills. Against this backdrop, this year's volume of sales at the international book fair has been low.

Question-answer series

What is noteworthy here is to find out which genre of books that has been sold most at the exhibition. If you speculate that the surge is for fiction or children's books, the assumption is wrong. A large number of books that were sold at the exhibition are the Question-answer series tailor-made for students from grade one to grade twelve. These books are substandard both in their printing and the contents. No one really knows the qualifications of the authors of these Question-answers series. These books are crawling with mistakes and of inferior quality in language. The adverse impact of this trend is that it would, in the long run, contribute to make a generation with absolute no creativity. Children are effectively dissuaded from reading even the prescribed text books. These children constituting the majority of student population in the country would virtually confine to Question-answer series. Does this reflect a new FM SMS generation student who may be seeking short answers?

Among the books in Sinhala, the fictions that enjoyed a steady sale at the exhibition the ones that had won awards at diverse award ceremonies. Given the quality, expertise and calibre of personalities who occupy most of the award committees, it is obvious that awards are trotted out to books favoured by them, most of the occasion on personal affiliations with the authors rather than on the merits and demerits of the books. These fictions are, in reality, deserved to be discarded into wastepaper baskets or a dumping ground! However, with an impressive tag, these prescribed fictions enjoyed a healthy sale at the exhibition, perhaps owing to the media hype that these fictions received equally from ill-informed and half-backed critics.

'The Golden Book'

The so-called 'Golden Book' would, in the long run, cause harm to Sinhala fiction contrary to its avowed lofty goals in propagating the Sinhala fiction among the readers. In my opinion, it is not only counterproductive but will also discourage readers to purchase books other than those five books that received awards. Given the dubious standing of the award, the books that received the award are the ones that were favoured by the members of the award committee. For instance, last in order to include a book favoured by the panellists, sample of the selected books for the third round has been increased to twelve books. It is evident that it perhaps it was done deliberately include the particular book for the third round since it has not been within the sample of ten books. However, bias is revealed by the fact that this year's sample confined to ten books obviously as the favoured book is within the sample. It is regrettable, albeit a fact, that award can no longer be considered as a benchmark for quality books.

Another noticeable trend is the immense popularity that cheap thrash enjoy among some sections of the population. For instance, a person who is much revered in society has brought heap of cheap romance in Sinhala. Although no one is banned from reading out cheap fiction on their own accord, it obviously shows the inferior taste of the reader. In another instance, a couple of children were insisting the mother who accompanied them on purchasing romance. Apparently the shop assistant was flabbergasted at the sight since the children were not even six year of age. It was because of a snap of a popular teledrama actress on the cover of the book. In my view, the teledrama was as cheap as the actress who performed in it.

One may arrive at the conclusion how influential the idiot box in moulding the minds of the children. Parents are to be blamed for this disturbing trend which would in the long run, create a generation of citizens with no sense of creativity and who would not be able to appreciate great piece of literature. Looking at spending habit of book lovers, it is obvious that some would go for the cheap or discounted books, irrespective of the quality and the content of the books while others would go for higher quality books of lasting value. In terms of the social status of the buyers, the striking fact is that people of higher social standing are more knowledgeable on what the books they must purchase based on the content of the books. They tend to go for higher quality latest publications.

Translations of inferior quality

One of the segments of the books, popular among Sinhala readership is translations. However, at the moment Sinhalese literary landscape is swept over by a trend of cheap translations. Though people purchase scores of translations, it seems that they do not bother about the quality of the translations and the expertise of the translators. Regrettably most of the Sinhalese translations are chaotic and of inferior quality.

International or local?

This year's international book fair is marked for its rather poor representation of international publishers. Except for few stalls, collection for English books was extremely poor and inclusion of bargain books and used books conveyed a sense that the book exhibition was more local than international in character. If the organisers could focus on this fact, they would be able to improve the book exhibition so as to make it a much-awaited literary event not only in Sri Lanka but also in South Asia.

In the ideal scenario, the book exhibition should attract a large number of international and regional publishers together with literary buffs from diverse parts of the globe. However, there is a long way to go to reach that goal.