Brunei book fair for book lovers
By Rosli Abidin Yahya

Posters promoting the book fair

Aside from books being exhibited and sold at competitive prices at the Brunei Book Fair 2003, organisers Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (DBP), Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports have plenty of side events to be participated by members of the public. The Brunei Book Fair 2003, to be held at the International Convention Centre, Berakas from May 2 to 11, will have an official opening ceremony on May 2 at 2.30 pm.

The fair is actually a side event of the Congress of Southeast Asian Librarians (CONSAL) XII conference scheduled to be held from May 4 to 8.

However because of the global outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), the event had been moved to another date.

Organisers have a new date, which will be announced later, said Siti Zaleha Hj Kaprawi, DBP's Public Relations Officer.

She said activities at the book fair include poem declamations starting at 8.00 to 9.30 pm on May 2. The poem recital event is aimed to test people's ability, skills and talents in reciting poems.

"A painting workshop will be conducted by our cartoonist, Jaafar Zabidi on Saturday morning.

"The response for this event is very good that we could not accept anymore participants," they said.

Book lovers meanwhile are looking forward to the fair where they could find good bargains.

They said DBP normally offers huge discounts on their publications and "we usually scour for DBP books at such fairs as we definitely find good bargains as well as free gifts".

The fair is meant to inculcate reading culture amongst the population where experts said reading habits could help students achieve excellent academic results provided the process is "deconstructed" and subject to "post-modern" supervision.

"According to my extensive research, the backs of books in the post-modern age contain words written by someone who has already read the book. Publisher's blurbs also offer the plot and criticism of any given book in a neat summary that subverts 'traditional patriarchal methods' of teaching.

"As a result of my field tests, I find that I can read the entire contents of a major bookshop in just a few weeks. Students practising my technique will be able to read their literature lists in a matter of hours and then write essays on these books," said a researcher.

Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin