The Shakespeare & Co bookstore in Paris, affected by the virus, asks for help

Shakespeare and Company, the iconic Paris bookstore that published James Joyce’s “Ulysses” in 1922, request support to readers after pandemic losses and the spring blockade in France called into question the future of the emblematic Left Bank institution.

The English language bookstore on the Seine, he emailed customers last week to inform them that he was facing “difficult times” and to encourage them to buy a book.

“We’re down 80% since the first foreclosure in March, so at this point we’ve used all of our savings,” Sylvia Whitman, daughter of late owner George Whitman, told The Associated Press. Paris entered a new lockdown on October 30 which saw all non-essential stores closed for the second time in seven months.

Whitman has since said she has been “overwhelmed” by offers of help Shakespeare and Company received

. There was a record 5,000 online orders in one week, compared to around 100 in a typical week, a 50-fold increase.

Support comes from all walks of life: from pupils humble to former French President François Hollande, who went through the bookstore overlooking Notre-Dame cathedral before closing in response to the call.

“(My dad) let people sleep in the bookstore and called them ‘tumbleweeds’. We had 30,000 people sleeping in the bookstore, ”Whitman said, adding that this was one way the founders of the store encouraged writers to be creative. In fact, the motto on the store wall reads: “Do not be inhospitable to strangers so that they are not angels in disguise.”

The outpouring of loyalty is perhaps not surprising for the place often described as the the most famous independent bookstore in the world. Founded by Sylvia Beach in 1919, Shakespeare & Company has become a creative center for writers expatriates with Ernest Hemingway, TS Eliot, F. Scott Fitzgerald and James Joyce.