Publishers outside India will largely be looking the other way, mostly oblivious to this huge market with potential that puts it in a league quite of its own, both for physical products in a country of 1.4 billion people and for digital products in a country of 755 million internet users.
India’s 2022 book fair calendar could yet be derailed by Covid-19’s rally of variants, but as we look to close 2021 the New Delhi World Book Fair, the Kolkata International Book Fair, the Jaipur Literary Festival and the Chennai Book Fair are all looking to go ahead.
Organised by the Booksellers and Publishers Association of South India (BAPASI), the 45th incarnation of the Chennai Book Fair, that usually is a 12-day event, will in January run for 18 days with a precautionary limit on daily attendance. Despite this, the extra days will, BAPASI’s S K Murugan hopes, see Chennai exceed one million visitors in 2022.
Chennai, like Kolkata, is a pubic-facing event, while the New Delhi World Book Fair is trade-facing, but all three regularly draw over one million visitors – and sometimes attendance runs to the millions.
2022, if all goes to plan, will be the first return to a full book fair calendar for India, and observers will be watching with interest how the public respond to the opportunity given the Covid-climate.
Publishers outside India will largely be looking the other way, mostly oblivious to this huge market with potential that puts it in a league quite of its own, both for physical products in a country of 1.4 billion people and for digital products in a country of 755 million internet users.
