The third annual RISE Bookselling Conference opened Sunday morning in Riga, Latvia, with a keynote talk by Nadia Wassef, co-founder of Diwan Bookstore in Cairo, Egypt, and author of Shelf Life: Chronicles of a Cairo Bookseller (Picador).
Wassef recalled how in 2002, she and two other women founded Diwan armed with little more than guts and dreams. They knew next to nothing about the book business, including all that could go wrong, and while ignorance might not be bliss, it offered a "complete absence of fear."
The bookstore's early success led to a second location six years later, followed by a period of rapid growth that saw Diwan operating 10 branches by 2010. Diwan was already in dire financial straits, having cut costs and closed a few locations, when the revolution of 2011 began. Wassef noted that it was one thing to read about revolutions in history books--living through one was "cataclysmic." People were buying food, not books, and the months that followed were "emotionally and financially draining."
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| Nadia Wassef | |
It took seven years, Wassef continued, for the Diwan team to "claw our way back into the black." Locations closed and new ones opened, and in 2021 Diwan founded a publishing wing. Earlier this month, Diwan celebrated its 23rd anniversary, and it now boasts nine branches, two seasonal stores on Egypt's north coast, and the publishing house. The story of triumph after near extinction, Wassef said, "echoes that of countless independent bookstores."
"Every bookseller is a Scheherazade of sorts, sustaining not only themselves but their entire community and cohort through the power of storytelling," she said, referencing the heroine of One Thousand and One Nights. "And with each recommendation, each conversation, every reinvention, we prolong the life of bookselling, for one more day, one more story."
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During her opening remarks, European and International Booksellers Federation director Julie Belgrado acknowledged the "worrying state" of the world, with wars, attacks on freedom of expression, and "democratic backsliding" in countries all around the globe.
But "against all odds," some 300 booksellers representing 30 nations find themselves "in a free country," able to gather and reunite. "From Egypt to Australia, Latvia to USA, Italy to Canada, we are all here to recognize the fundamental work that booksellers do. Because booksellers--you--contribute to upholding our democracies every day."
She also announced that RISE, originally a three-year project, will officially "stay for another four years."
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The conference's first day also included panels on innovative bookshop ideas, catering to neurodivergent readers, building effective teams, a keynote conversation with a Ukrainian bookseller, and more. More coverage will follow in Shelf Awareness this week. --Alex Mutter