After 45 years, a bookshop in London will close.

 On December 14, 2022, a pedestrian passes by the Al Saqi Books Middle Eastern specialty bookstore in Bayswater, west London.

In London, Salwa Gaspard puts some of the many Arabic-language books that are arranged on gloomy wooden shelves back where they belong while chatting with clients.


Her London bookstore, well-known to book lovers around the Middle East, will permanently close in a few days.


The pandemic and the economic turmoil in the UK and Lebanon, where Gaspard and her husband Andre's publishing firm prints and delivers the majority of its books, have also affected Al Saqi Books.


Since they first established the bookshop in 1978, it has become a must-see for travelers from the Middle East. It is located in a white colonnaded building near Paddington train station in west London.


A picture shot on December 14, 2022, depicts a general view of the Al Saqi Books Middle Eastern specialty bookstore in Bayswater, west London, on that day. — AFP
They will visit Al Saqi, Knightsbridge (the neighborhood around the renowned Harrods store), and Oxford Street (the main shopping street), she explained. The 74-year-old bookseller remarked that Al Saqi is a "wonderful name" because it denotes a water carrier in the desert in Arabic.

Because we carried Arabic culture, we thought it was a very appropriate name for a bookshop, she said.
English-language books about the Arab world are also available for purchase at the bookstore, according to the author, "to give them an alternative picture of the Middle East, which is not about the violent images they see on TV or read in the press."


Because of the bookshop's popularity, the couple was able to launch a publishing firm and begin translating Arabic literature into English, including French-Lebanese author Amin Maalouf's "The Crusades Through Arab Eyes."

Adonis, a Syrian poet, has been presenting his work in the London bookstore for more than 40 years.

Additionally, it developed become a gathering spot and even a "refuge" for people uprooted by conflict and unrest in the Middle East.


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