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This iconic London bookshop will soon close

2022-12-20T09:00:37.849Z


Open since 1978, the Al Saqi bookstore is closing a chapter in its history, weakened by Brexit, the pandemic and political chaos in Lebanon.


Salwa Gaspard looks tenderly at the dark wooden shelves on which lie hundreds of Arabic books, puts some back in place while exchanging a few words with customers.

In a few days, his London bookstore, known to lovers of letters throughout the Middle East, will close.

The Al Saqi bookstore has not survived the pandemic, Brexit and the political and economic chaos in Lebanon, from where the publishing house created by the couple prints and ships most of its books.

However, since its opening in 1978 by Salwa Gaspard, her husband André and a friend of the couple, the business, nestled in a white colonnaded building not far from Paddington station, had become an essential place.

For visitors from the Middle East, there was

"nothing cultural"

in London, recalls Salwa Gaspard, so success came quickly.

"They were going to Oxford Street

(the main shopping street)

, Knightsbridge

(the area of ​​the famous Harrod's store)

and the Al Saqi bookstore,"

she explains.

In Arabic, Al Saqi means the person who carries water in the desert,

“a perfect name”

, assures the 74-year-old bookseller.

Because the small book temple also sells essays in English on the Arab world to promote

"an idea of ​​the Middle East different from the violent images conveyed by television or in the newspapers"

, she explains.

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A bookstore that is both a meeting place and a “refuge”

With success, the couple created a publishing company, first of translation into English of Arab authors, such as

The crusades seen by the Arabs

of the Franco-Lebanese Amin Maalouf, and a few years later, another in Lebanon of Arabic books.

For more than 40 years, many writers have come to present their works there, like the famous Syrian poet Adonis.

A meeting place, sometimes even a "refuge" for immigrants uprooted by war or economic crises in the Near and Middle East, the Al Saqi bookstore has always fiercely defended its independence and its spirit of openness.

“People felt they had friends here who would understand them

,” because the events that affected them

“happened in so many countries in the Middle East

,” says Salwa Gaspard.

In 1978, Salwa Gaspard opened the Al Saqi bookstore, with her husband André and a friend of the couple.

Isabel INFANTES / AFP

And even if the owners have always been careful to stay away from politics, the bookstore has not escaped the upheavals of geopolitics.

Sometimes at his own risk, like when The

Satanic Verses

by Salman Rushdie came out in 1988, where his window was smashed.

“We never believed in censorship.

(…) we didn't want to ban anything

,” recalls the bookseller.

The couple also came under attack when they published a translation by Israeli Abba Eban of a work by Egyptian author Tawfiq al-Hakim.

"People were outraged (...) It was before the peace process, but it was just the intellectual union between an Egyptian and an Israeli"

.

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Emotion on social networks

The bookstore, opened in 1978, has been a meeting place, but also a place of refuge for immigrants uprooted by war or economic crises in the Near and Middle East.

Isabel INFANTES / AFP

The announcement of the closure of the bookstore at the end of the month sparked an avalanche of messages of sadness.

Ouissal Harize, whose profile displays the Algerian flag,

“thanks”

the bookstore on Twitter

“for being a home, far from home”

.

Or Nasri Atallah who evokes

“a pillar of my whole life in London, and of my father before me”

.

"It was like a sanctuary in London, so it's very bad news, really,"

says Farah Otozbeer, a 24-year-old Egyptian student, just graduated from the London School of Economics and who, passing through London to receive his diploma, insisted on coming one last time.

The book store

"has always been a place where Arabic-speaking people come from all over the Middle East to buy books that they couldn't buy in their countries"

, because of censorship in particular.

But she also had a big role in

"translating literature and essays into English and distributing them to an English-speaking public"

, regrets Joseph Devine, English employee of the bookstore and former student in Arabic.

After Covid-19, the bookstore hoped to bounce back, but the current economic crisis in the United Kingdom, with exploding costs, and the chaotic situation in Lebanon have dampened Salwa Gaspard's hopes.

“When we fled Lebanon, we had no family in London.

It was our family, the employees and even some customers have become like our family, and we are losing all of that today

.

Source: lefigaro

All news articles on 2022-12-20

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