'Village Voices': Remembering the famous Paris bookshop

Guardian Nigeria

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00:00Time for our Entre Nous segment now and today we're going to be focusing on an Anglo-American

00:05bookshop which was once an institution in the French capital. Village Voice was situated on

00:10Paris's left bank in the 6th arrondissement for 30 years and closed its doors in 2012.

00:15We can now bring in Odile Elier who was owner of the Village Voice and who's written a memoir

00:20off the bookshop which was around between 1982 and 2012. Thank you so much for joining us here

00:28on the program today. Now you were living in the United States and then you moved back to Paris.

00:33Why did you decide to open up a bookshop and an English language bookshop geared towards

00:39the United States? It's a long time, it's a long story but I will say that first of all we start

00:45with the Village Voices which is the title of my memoir of the Village Voice bookshop in Paris

00:51and this title is a story of my life as a bookseller who invited so many people to

01:02read about them at the Village Voice. American authors and anglophone world authors and

01:09this is the beginning of the story. But why did you decide to open an English bookstore?

01:15English bookstore again it's because of my time in America and my time in America.

01:22I never thought of opening a bookstore but bookstores were very important for me

01:26and I never thought of opening a bookstore and much less an American bookstore because my

01:32university studies led me to or trained me to become a teacher of Russian language

01:41and this is not an American language, it's Russian language. So it takes a little bit of

01:48time to explain why I opened this bookstore. It was never on my mind before. Odile, you were

01:54located on the left bank of Paris in the sixth town, the small part of the city which had a

02:01reputation back in the day of attracting the literati and the intelligentsia of the city.

02:08Was that why you chose the sixth town, the small and 30 years ago did it also have that reputation?

02:14Definitely, I mean when I decided to open a bookstore because of my years in the States

02:20where I really loved the bookstores as they were lively with debates over realities of the time.

02:29When I decided to open the bookstore I knew that I wanted it to be in Saint-Germain-des-Prés

02:36because it is traditionally the place where all the publishers were, not so much now, but were

02:43and also the literary avant-garde was, you know, we know very well all those writers who live

02:50in Saint-Germain-des-Prés and the cafes, you know, where they went to discuss, you know, the works at Saint-Germain-des-Prés.

02:57I think I read in the book that your brother designed the space and you also

03:02intended to not just have it as a place to sell books but a place to hang out and to interact

03:07with other people. Yes, that's right. When I found the place Rue Princesse, a small street but very close

03:13to Boulevard Saint-Germain, it's my brother who restored, you know, the place and renovated it and

03:18it was a beautiful place, very light, two stories and we added a cafe because my idea of literature

03:28is discussion, to really talk about books and I really wanted the cafe which is also a way

03:36of talking with people, of where to meet and discuss things. Cafes and literature go together

03:44and I really want a cafe as well but five years later I got rid of the cafe because I wanted the

03:51whole space dedicated to books. I read a part of the chapter which you have here which is titled

03:59Black America in Paris. What do you think it was about the city of Paris that allowed African-American

04:06artists at the time to find their way when there was so much going on in the United States?

04:12Well, it's part of the tradition. You had the American literature tradition with the

04:20last generation of Hemingway but you had also Harlem in Paris in the 20s and 30s

04:28and the people who came to Paris in the 80s were not the same people who went to Paris

04:36in the 20s and 50s with Baldwin and of course Richard Wright but there were people who were

04:45not coming because of political problems in the States. They were coming in the 80s to

04:53try a new way of life and like the white youth who came to the village, it was

05:01incredible waves of waves of young people who came in the 80s to the village and so I would say

05:06that American writers such as Jake Lenoir came to enjoy. He was a Harvard

05:17journalist and he came to enjoy a year in Paris and he stayed in Paris and now

05:23he has written in Paris many books about African-Americans, crime novels about, I mean in

05:30France and in America always with African-Americans and recently he got the Dagger Award for his book

05:39on Harlem and just people. But I just wanted to ask you because over the course obviously of 30

05:45years you must have held so many different events with different authors. While you were speaking we

05:50saw Toni Morrison behind you. Any of them stand out to you? Any favorites? What can you tell us?

05:58Yes, I mean many people I would say many many people stand out but also I thought that I would

06:06speak a little bit maybe about you know I could speak about Richard Ford, I could speak

06:14about so many people that come to my mind but perhaps you know you could since you see the

06:22pictures well for instance Sedaris. Sedaris came to the Village Voice and he was very very popular

06:30at the Village Voice and it was always packed for him and there was a question he wondered about

06:38you know during those talks you know how is it that you know I am a person who you know

06:47creates stories so that people can laugh and how is it that these people, foreign people you

06:55know understand what I want to say. It's very difficult you know to understand you know people

07:00who want to entertain. It's very difficult to understand in foreign country what you say but

07:06everywhere in the world he was very popular and in France as well and one of his books is

07:12his difficulty to listen to or to learn English and therefore he asked

07:21why is it that you know you laugh when I speak and someone in the room said but it's universal

07:28and definitely the story it tells, the stories it tells are definitely coming from the really

07:36rooted in the American life but in fact they are universal like usually in all literatures you

07:42know you talk about something very local and it becomes universal. Indeed Odile unfortunately

07:49we're totally out of time. I have so many more questions to ask you about the Village Voice.

07:54Unfortunately you had to shut its doors in 2012 and I would like to thank you for coming in and

08:00speaking to us. Thank you. Great to learn more about and we'll speak once we're done. Yes and

08:06maybe you can read more. I look forward to finishing your book so stay with us for just

08:10a second. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.

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