Sylvia Whitman spent her earlier childhood years amid the burgeoning creative chaos of Paris' legendary English language bookshop, Shakespeare and Company. Flurries of books and conversations, the incessant coming and going of writers working and lodging at the shop-- these are the images, Sylvia says, that populate her early memories. At only 21, she returned to Paris from the UK, and ended up (to her own surprise, she notes), taking over management of the storied shop from her father, George Whitman.
A legend in his own right, George Whitman opened a bookshop, Le Mistral, in 1951 just across from Notre Dame, but changed the name to Shakespeare and Company when his friend and owner of the original left-bank shop, Sylvia Beach, passed away. Whitman would retain the spirit of the original shop, welcoming writers such as Anaïs Nin and Allen Ginsburg, and would also name his daughter after the brazen young bookseller who dared to publish James Joyce's Ulysses when no one else would.
Since Sylvia took the helm at S & Co., she's brought a fresh sense of relevance to the place-- especially through the creation of Festivalandco, a biannual literary festival that brings together some of the most exciting contemporary voices in fiction, poetry, and other genres. I met Sylvia recently for a chat near the bookshop to talk about the 2010 festival-- which runs June 18th through 20th-- and about keeping the spirit of the shop alive and well. Below are excerpts.
CT: You’ve been running Shakespeare and Company for the past few years, and have been putting your own mark on the place. What was that like growing up in this chaotic but wonderful, haphazard world-- people constantly coming and going?
SW: It was very bohemian, I suppose. I was there until I was about six, so the memories are kind of blurry-- lots of people coming in and out. Lots of writers, and people reading stories every day. It was kind of idyllic, to be surrounded by so many young people-- our writers in residence, or the “tumbleweeds” as we call them. I have a very strong memory of people reading to me in the shop, a very nice one. Then there was a long gap (....) and I didn’t come back until I was 21. I lived in Scotland (for) boarding school and then went to university in London.
CT: And as soon as you came back, you took over the shop-- it was quite a young age to take over a shop with such a huge legacy.
SW: Yes, and I was completely oblivious to that, which was a good thing. I remember people commenting on the pressure. But when you’re thrown in the deep end like that, you just get on with it. (...) I just tried to learn and carry on. (...) When I came back, I actually didn’t want to run the bookshop at all. I just came back to get to know my dad. But I quickly realized that to get to know him.. you have to know the bookshop, because the two are the same, basically. And then I really enjoyed it-- not to my expectations, but I did.
NEXT PAGE: On feeling Parisian...but not French
