Barun Roy: An Asian icon

ASIA FILE

Amidst a spate of bookstores shutting shop, Manila's Solidaridad continues to be a shining beacon.

A recent New York Times report that Micawber Books, an independent bookstore next to Princeton University in the US would be closing down in March after struggling to remain in business for 26 years, reminded me of a little bookstore in Manila, often called "the best little bookstore in Asia," that's still alive after 41 years.

Solidaridad Bookshop, famous in Asia's literary circles, was born of one man's dream. Francisco Sionil Jose, "Frankie" to friends and one of the Philippines' foremost writers in English, set it up in 1965 when he returned home from Sri Lanka after finishing an assignment with the Colombo Plan. Not to earn money, as he later said, but to put his love for books on display and create a watering hole for his fellow writers and creative people from all other walks of life. He personally selects the titles that Solidaridad (the name is Spanish and means "solidarity") carries and each book goes through his hands before it gets on the shelf.

Today, Frankie Jose is 81 and Solidaridad is half his age. Between them, they have created an institution whose reputation has travelled far beyond its tiny home on Manila's Padre Faura, in the Ermita tourist district. You haven't visited Manila, really, if you haven't visited Solidaridad, it's that reputable. And you can't pretend to be an intellectual in Manila if you aren't seen browsing among its austere wooden shelves. The store is lost among the many shops and restaurants that have come up along Padre Faura and nearby Mabini, but people do take the trouble to find it because it makes them feel special.

You must go to Solidaridad if you are looking for the fullest selection of books by Filipino writers, or the latest foreign titles in fiction, poetry, philosophy, history or political theory. There are many other places you can pick up your favourite bestsellers from, but for the really serious stuff, Solidaridad is the place to go. Intellectual life in Manila literally revolves around Solidaridad and the magazine bearing the same name that Jose founded soon after he opened the bookshop.

As you walk through the shop's unassuming front door, you realise you've entered a special place. The ambience is that of a personal study at home. There's music, just like one would have at home. There are paintings on the walls, mostly by new and upcoming artists that Jose wants to promote. You walk between shelves unhindered. Take as much time as you want. If you are a regular, you may climb a little staircase, lined by more paintings, to a first-floor den, where there are more books along the walls and tables and chairs on the floor. That's where the novelists, poets and artists gather in the evenings. That's where, many years ago, Frankie Jose brought together a group of Filipino poets and writers and had me read out some of my translations of Tagore's songs and poems.

I have often wondered what makes Solidaridad tick when all over the world, independent bookstores have been under relentless attack from book chains. In Manila itself, as the bigger shops keep expanding, a boutique bookshop called Libreria closed down last month only after two years of its opening. It ran a patisserie on the side and let its customers sing, laugh and even dance if they wished while browsing, but still couldn't hold its own.

It has to be Solidaridad's elitist character, its one-of-a-kind image. The homely feeling also is a plus, against the blatantly glossy, impersonal, commercial look of chain stores, which attempt to be everything to everybody, even buyers of stationery, wrapping paper and greeting cards. Above all, it must be a certain kind of intellectuality and respect that people have come to associate with Solidaridad.

It's precisely this quality of elitist exclusiveness that's behind the huge reputation that Asia's second Solidaridad, Cow Books of Tokyo, also enjoys. Cow Books, in Tokyo's Nakameguro district, specialises in out-of-print books focussing on the 1950s-1970s social movements, progressive policies and protests, as well as the first editions of forgotten modern authors. Its owner, book critic Yataro Matsuura, travels abroad several times a year to hunt for rare books, and it's these that book lovers and collectors come from all over the world to check out and browse through.

One might also count Singapore's Select Books in this league. Established in 1976 by a small group of friends, including a librarian, an architect, a journalist and an academic, Select specialises in southeast Asian titles. Anybody who is interested in the region's politics, economics, and literature and happens to be in Singapore is sure to be seen browsing among the shelves of Select's well-stuffed shop in Tangling Arcade.

In the end, however, as a cultural and emotional icon, Solidaridad remains a class apart.