A request to vacate the premises he has occupied since 2006 in the heart of Lagos, together with steep rents for anywhere new, are set to force business owner Luís Fagundes to shut his bookshop, A Internacional, he has said.
He told reporters from the Lusa news agency that his shop, located on Avenida dos Descobrimentos, which over two decades has become a “refuge” for its customers, is set to stop trading by the end of the year. So far he has found no other space at a price the business can afford.
“This is nothing new. Quite the opposite: it’s what is happening to independent bookshops everywhere,” he said. “In this case it wasn’t a brutal rent increase. The landlady asked for the space back.” He acknowledged that finding a similar place in central Lagos for what he pays now is “impossible”.
He has viewed other premises, but the bookshop “has always struggled with the bills, every day, every month-end”, and the rents asked for a comparable shop top the €2,015 he currently pays.
Every commercial unit he has seen carries a higher rent, he said, even in quieter parts of town. “And the space is smaller than what I have now, which isn’t a big shop. It’s 80 square metres. That’s the reality. On the avenue, they’re letting for €4,000 to €4,500, right next door to me.”
Although closure looms with no solution in sight, Fagundes plans to keep the company, founded in 1998, going. “The bookshop only opened in 2006, so 20 years ago. We’ll go back to our roots, so to speak, with the book fairs, which we’ve never stopped doing. We hold more than 20 a year, with direct sales to municipal libraries, and online.”
He will keep watching for an alternative, preferably in Lagos, where he has his warehouse. Otherwise, the town loses a 20-year-old business with “a lot of local customers, a lot of neighbours” and visitors who “make a point of dropping in when they come on holiday”.
“It’s a relationship of affection and respect,” he added. “Customers see our shop as a refuge, where they can listen to a bit of music, read a few books and clear their heads of the day’s worries for a while. It’s a shame to lose that.”
Over the years, A Internacional has set itself apart by hand-picking the bulk of its catalogue, without turning its back on commercial titles. The authors range from the classics to writers who get little attention in the mainstream media or on television, Fagundes said.
Customers rate another feature highly: “a good mix” of antiquarian and new books, with a few rarities and second-hand bargains to be found. In a region where tourists and foreign residents are a constant presence, the shop also stood out for stocking books in several languages.
If no solution emerges, Fagundes will have to leave by the end of the year. It would mirror what he claims to have witnessed in recent years, as neighbours and other local shops have left the area, replaced by “franchises or Thai massage parlours, which have proliferated across the town”.
Source: LUSA
Photo credit: Elisabete Rodrigues
