Chennai: The golden jubilee edition of the annual Chennai Book Fair will be held from Jan 7 to 19 at the YMCA Grounds, with events centred on promoting reading among school and college students, organisers announced on Friday.Organised by the Booksellers and Publishers Association of South India (BAPASI), the 50th edition of the fair will invite Nobel laureates in literature as special guests. School and college students will be appointed as ‘book fair ambassadors’.There will also be a series of events for college and school students, and promotion of the fair on social media. “Multilingual scholars, especially those aged more than 60, will be honoured, and representatives of Tamil associations from across the globe will be invited to attend the fair to help publishers and booksellers attain global reach,” BAPASI organisers said.Launching the logo and website www.chennaibookfair.com for the book fair’s golden edition, assembly speaker J C D Prabhakar said the TVK govt had increased the monetary support to BAPASI from ₹75 lakh to ₹1 crore. “More people should read books. I have asked the district library officer to provide a list of the top borrowers and readers at city libraries and request the BAPASI to invite and honour them with books,” he said.The speaker further urged all state legislators to open libraries in their constituencies.BAPASI president R S Shanmugam, said, “The Chennai Book Fair is a vital platform for showcasing the excellence of the Tamil language to the entire world. This edition has been designed to benefit people from all walks of life, including readers, students, the younger generation, teachers, creators, writers, entrepreneurs, and publishers.”
