By Ione Gildroy
Following Donald Trump’s election as President of the USA, inclusive and radical spaces are feeling all the more important in resistance, protest and community building. To find out more about the importance of these spaces, GAY45 spoke to two queer radical bookshops, one in Paris, one in Edinburgh.
Lighthouse, Edinburgh. Image courtesy of the author.
There has been a political bookshop on Edinburgh’s West Nicolson Street for over 30 years, today called Lighthouse bookshop.
Lighthouse runs regular events, including book clubs, which focus on a variety of themes like women in translation and queer stories, allowing people to come together to discuss these things in an open, welcoming and accessible way. The bookshop also hosts a variety of other book-related events, both intimate and much large, which often have elements of performance, film, or live music too.
When we spoke to her, senior bookseller Hannah also told us about Lighthouse’s Radical Book Fair, a three day annual fair which features a range of books, publishers, authors and community groups. ‘The theme for this year’s fair was “From Where We Stand”. With a nod to the thirty years of a radical bookshop existing on West Nicolson Street, we’re celebrating the way histories of resistance, protest, and change-making live on in every step we take toward a more just future.’
‘Through the four days of the fair, we dived into conversations about community organising through time and across generations, international solidarity, radical histories, and how we draw on them. We explored possible futures rooted in past struggles. Sometimes it’s not only about making new worlds – it’s also about building from the worlds that have wilfully been buried through history, but which we all depend on.’
Events such as this are important for drawing together communities and providing safe, welcoming spaces for all, but when asked how important the bookshop is to the local community, owner Mairi said, ‘That’s not really for us to say.’
Mairi continued: ‘We’d like to think we’re considered a safe space by our community. When you navigate the west as a white, able-bodied, middle-class, cis straight man, the world is so accessible and accommodating, literally built for you. Our bookshop offers a space where that effortless belonging will be felt by those who don’t yet navigate the world without friction, challenge or even rejection. A place to feel valued, celebrated, safe and empowered.’
‘Being a haven for marginalised folk is an ever-changing thing – sometimes that means explicit actions, often it’s more subtle signaling, always it’s about being open to what our community needs and openly evolving. Our friends at the Glasgow Women’s Library have a saying, there are no hard-to-reach audiences, only those easy-to-ignore, so it’s on us to shout from the rooftops: YOU are welcome here. Before we even get to the books and the author events, we make sure people can access the bookshop.’
‘Hearing that sigh of relief upon entering the shop is a regular and gratifying occurrence here at Lighthouse. A sign that we are a place of refuge and relaxation. We’ll keep doing the work, so that as many people as possible get to experience that visceral comfort.’
Les Mots à la Bouche bookshop in Paris was founded for similar reasons – to create a visible space for people to access queer content. It was first founded in 1980 in Paris’s 18th Arrondissement by gay activist Jean-Pierre Meyer-Genton. The bookshop moved to the Marais district of Paris in 1983, participating in the development of what would become Paris’s gay neighbourhood. The bookshop then moved to the 11th in 2020, and became an LGBTQI+ cooperative bookshop in 2021.
The booksellers at Les Mots à la Bouche told us that the bookshop is especially important in the current political climate. ‘If there isn’t an LGBTQI+ section in your bookstore, if LGBTQI+ cultures and history are not usually told in your family or school, you don’t know the authors to look for. Asking for queer books in other bookstores can be complicated, and you’re not always in the mood to come out to buy a book. And many booksellers know few things about queer history and literature.’
Like Lighthouse, Les Mots à la Bouche hosts a range of events and offers support in the local community: ‘We do book launches, signings, interviews, poetry readings… We participate in book festivals such as WeToo [a feminist, inclusive and family friendly artistic and practical festival in Paris], we also create book lists for schools to create queer corners in their libraries.’
By running these events, providing these services, these bookshops become a vital part of their communities, especially in supporting young people. Les Mots à la Bouche told us how rewarding it is ‘to see teenagers saying “I didn’t know such a place existed! This is amazing!”’ And to be able to provide a safe place that members of our communities need ‘just to be themselves, to meet their lovers and friends, to meet authors they like.’
Queer, radical and inclusive spaces such as these are only going to become more important, especially as the booksellers at Les Mots à la Mouche say, ‘For so long our stories were almost impossible to find. Because nobody dared to write them. Or to publish them. Or to sell them. Because it was too dangerous. Or illegal. As is still the case in many places.’
‘And it is so important to read stories that present characters that look, desire or love like you. You can’t do activism or resist if you’re alone and ignorant. You need to know what happened before, how people like you got organised in communities in the past, to stand for their rights and their lives.’
And when asked what the future looks like, Les Mots à la Bouche says, ‘Our community is growing, people come out younger and younger, homophobia and transphobia are still there. We are here to stay. We organised the cooperative to be easy to transmit to our successors. We look for the long term.’
Lighthouse is a queer bookshop located in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. You can support them by following their Instagram page, @lighthousebks. Les Mots à la Bouche is a queer bookshop located in Paris, France. You can support them by following their Instagram page, @les_motsalabouche.
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