IN DEPTH
Opinion Bookselling in Georgia
Peter Nasmyth
Two decades ago Prospero’s Books, the first English- language bookshop in the Caucasus, opened its doors. What has it learned in the past 20 years?
Overcoming mountains N
When I penned those words, we had been open for 11 months. We are now about to become 20 years old—and one of the longest-running businesses on Rustaveli (the capital cit’s Oxford Street). So what enabled us to survive? Apart from the obvious—our backbone Tamara Megrelishvili, whose managerial determination, belief and skill has been there from day one—several unforeseen factors certainly helped. First, that Georgian speakers, not foreigners, would form the bedrock of our business. Second, that we became a major information source in the cit, as modern Russian-language publications were dwin- dling fast, along with Russian speakers. If locals wanted to start a business, travel, learn a language or computer programme, or were pregnant, or just generally curious, we could help. Even when the internet became reliable across the country, including the remote mountain areas, this never completely disappeared. As the power cuts started to wane and the economy
grew, the Georgian eagerness for learning English did too. Language schools such as International House already had an English-language bookshop and were ahead of us, but as Georgia’s only full-scale English-language bookshop we were still able to establish another clientèle. Then our coffee business—developed by Steve Johnson,
Prospero’s co-founder—started to flourish. But alongside all this, one must mention the drama-loving, book-friendly atmosphere of Georgia itself. Caucasians in general like nothing beter than a good, absurdist tale where everything goes wrong. Not unlike the English... To write
20 12th October 2018
it down, preserve and publish it has always been popular. Theatre in Georgia is also of an unusually high standard. From the beginning, Tbilisi established a thriving book fair supported by a healthy local book market. When Harry Poter arrived, the country’s largest publisher, Sulakauri, quickly sold more than 25,000 copies of its Georgian translation—not bad, in what was then a poor country of only around four million citizens. We sold the English original, so the two editions effectively promoted each other.
Even when Kindles started appearing—the death knell, many bookshops feared—we survived. E-book sales in Georgia, in fact, seem to be shrinking. An atractive, well- writen book remains the souvenir and present of choice. Our Georgian customers remained faithful.
ineteen years ago, The Bookseller asked for an account of our opening the first English-language bookshop in the heart of the then-wild and woolly Caucasus. Prospero’s Books at 34 Rustaveli Avenue, Tbilisi, was born into a time of power cuts, corruption, war across the border and very few tourists. Our primary asset, aſter the books, was our generator. Reading the article back now, a nervous phrase stands out: “Would there be enough English speakers to keep the business going?”
Caucasians in general like nothing better than a good, absurdist tale where everything goes wrong. Not unlike the English...
Peaks and troughs By 2005/06, when visitor numbers finally began to pick up, it seemed the vision many of us had back in 1998—of this stunningly beautiful, mountainous country becom- ing a tourist haven—was being realised. I sat down and wrote the first hiking guide to the country, Walking in the Caucasus, Georgia, simply because so many people had asked for one. Too idiosyncratic for regular publishers, I started Mta Publications to release it (“mta” means moun- tain in Georgian). This developed into a mini-list of other Caucasus-related books, and Mta now also distributes for other small-press books. All this was helped along by the distributor Central Books in London, which was kind enough to take us on. Just when all signs looked rosy, the Caucasian unfore- seen reared its head. In August 2008, the world’s news- papers suddenly reported a mini-war erupting between Georgia and Russia. Those five days—which saw Russian tanks roll into Georgia—were to set the country’s tourism back. Some businesses went to the wall but we and the local Georgian book trade rode the storm. Coffee, partly, came to the rescue. And it’s important to mention this burgeoning local market. Georgian-language bookshops had been sprout- ing up—with names like Parnassus, Literature Café, Santa Esperanza and, more recently Biblus, selling its locally printed books very cheaply (the equivalent of £2–£3 for standard paperbacks). Indeed, Biblus has evolved into a chain across the country, with around 60 branches. For us, these shops are still more mutually supportive than competitive, encouraging book culture in general. Today, with the tourists properly returning to Georgia,
Prospero’s has finally established what we’d hoped for at the beginning: a strong presence in international guide- books, web reports, blogs, word-of-mouth accounts. We have an active notice-board, second-hand section, book launches, children’s reading hour, a “Meet the Author” programme—all intended to make our Rustaveli courtard one of tourists’ first ports of call.
Peter Nasmyth is the co-founder of Prospero's Books. His fourth edition of Georgia in the Mountains of Poetry (Duckworth) is out now in paperback
Although the market in Georgia still isn’t large, we and the ever-increasing quantit of literary-themed restaurants, cafés, shops and hotels have been made welcome in Tbilisi. Our bookshop with a generator, which two decades ago no one thought would last, is still eagerly pouring the coffee.
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