It’s not quite RIP Ekushey Boi Mela, but this is going to hurt Bangladesh publishing many times over.

This is painful to write. I’ve been flying the flag for Bangladesh’s remarkable month-long book fair since long before TNPS launched.

From the first day of February until the last, year in, year out, providing Bangladeshi publishers and retailers their annual feast, the Ekushey Boi Mela was an amazing spectacle on the South Asia publishing circuit, that deserved far more global industry attention that it received.

Politics has played a large part in the current turmoil, with no Bangladeshi publishers heading to India this past year, and now the flagship Ekushey Boi Mela’s event dates being tossed about like a plaything, from one date to another, and finally settling on probably the worst dates of all.

Bangla Academy, which organises the event, has shifted the 2026 Amar Ekushey Book Fair yet again: it will now open 20 February, deep inside Ramadan, and close 15 March.

After three months of silence, the announcement confirms publishers’ worst-case scenario: footfall and sales are expected to slump while production schedules lie in tatters.

The Boi Mela is a huge social event for families, that in good years have spent over $56 million, but Ramadan is no time for partying, and money will be being set aside for Eid al-Fitr and and Zakat al-Fitr.

Shrinking lists, shrinking confidence

Adarsha Prokashoni will launch ±30 titles (60 last year); Baatighar 10 (30); Anannya barely 30 (130). Across Dhaka’s printing lanes, paper orders have been cancelled and binders idle. The estimated 2025 turnover of Tk 40 crore ($4.4 million) – already down from Tk 60 crore ($6.6 million) in 2024 – could halve again unless the fair is moved to post-Eid, the option almost every house prefers.

Lost bridges to the east

The gloom is deepened by a second successive bar from the Kolkata International Book Fair (22 Jan-3 Feb 2026). New Delhi has withheld MEA clearance, so the Guild cannot allocate space to the 45 Bangladeshi publishers who have attended every year since 1996 and were “theme country” as recently as 2022. Visa paralysis means Assam and other Indian fairs are equally off-limits.

Why it matters

Ekushey is South Asia’s biggest Bengali-language retail moment; Kolkata is its natural international wing. Denied both, publishers lose cash flow, authors lose visibility and cross-border print culture loses another year.

The View From The Beach

Bangla Academy says “further meetings” will explore relief, but stall-rent cuts or post-Eid pop-ups are the only levers left. Until political calendars at home and abroad realign, the 2026 fair risks becoming a symbolic souk rather than the trade lifeline the industry still needs.

It’s not quite RIP Ekushey Boi Mela, but this is going to hurt Bangladesh publishing many times over. Even yet another date change to a post Ramadan event will not enable publishers to recover from the damage already done.

This post first appeared in the TNPS LinkedIn newsletter.