Hashemi Publishing House
The diaries of bookstores
The first branch of Hashemi Publishing was founded in 1971 by the late Seifollah Hashemian on Pasdaran Street, and the second branch was established on Vali-e Asr Street. Because of its location in the city, the Vali-e Asr branch became the central branch. The publishing house was active in producing and distributing a wide variety of books, especially literary novels. On May 23, 2023, after thirty years of activity, it closed due to economic reasons.
First Memory — by Maliheh Hakim
Streets Are Not Built by Engineers
or
Which Streets Again?*
First
It is 2005, and the young girl has only recently entered the world of adulthood. She has torn herself away from the safety of home and is on her way to the university. She does not know the streets yet, and little by little, she is discovering the route from home to campus. At the beginning of the route, she must walk a bit, then board the buses that go to Vali-e Asr Square, and after that, head to Vanak. Every day, she carefully tears the small rectangular paper bus tickets in a particular order and places them in her bag. She also carries a book with her to read on the way to university. During the first weeks, she took books from her tiny home library, but as the days passed, she gradually began thinking about buying new books.
From the very first day, a beautiful bookstore in Vali-e Asr Square had caught her eye, and now she decides to visit it. When the bus reaches Vali-e Asr, she quickly pulls the ready ticket out of her bag pocket and eagerly heads toward the bookstore. A white sign with golden lettering stands proudly above the entrance: “Hashemi Publishing.” The moment she walks in, the scent of fresh paper intoxicates her. Every time she leaves there, her hands are full of books.
Second
When they arrive at Vali-e Asr Square, she is hand in hand with a lover. It is March, and a new spring is on its way. The girl, now seasoned by the world from reading so many books and tasting experience, is still enchanted by the white sign with the golden lettering. The moment her gaze catches on the bookstore sign, her beloved suggests they step in. The scent of fresh paper intoxicates them both. They leave with their hands full, one or two books and two calendars for the beginning of a new year and a new century.
The girl looks at the numbers on the calendar and cannot believe sixteen years have passed since the first time she stepped into this bookstore. She steps onto the sidewalk and moves a little away from the shop just to take it in with her eyes. Her beloved laughs and says, “What are you doing, girl? It’s just a bookstore!”
Third
The day she heard the news, she called her beloved and said, “Can you believe it? The Hashemi Publishing bookstore is gone! How can Vali-e Asr Street even exist without this bookstore?!” Her beloved replied, “I guess all good things come to an end.”
But the girl thought to herself that memories seem exempt from this rule. Streets are built by memories. And how fortunate it was that her becoming a reader had happened in this very place.
She had bought The Stranger on the very day she was leaving on a university trip, and just as the bookseller had predicted, she finished it quickly. The seller had said, “You bought this book at the perfect time, miss! You won’t be able to put it down. You’ll read it all the way to your destination and finish it.” And when she arrived, she felt both a stranger and familiar to everyone, especially to herself.
She had also bought The Blind Owl on the day she wanted to sit alone for a few hours in the garden at the end of the university grounds beneath the willow trees. She would never forget the combination of the dark honesty of Hedayat’s legends, the blowing breeze, and the trembling willow leaves.
How wonderful it was that she loved books — and even more wonderful that she had bought gifts for so many friends and loved ones from that shop. For her sister, she bought the novel Ahou Khanom, and for her friends Sara and Negar, she gave Anna Karenina and Notes from Underground.
Memories will not disappear, just like the literature’s masterpieces.
Her beloved was still on the phone when her tears fell, and she said, “I’m glad the last time we went there, we went together.”
She hung up. She sat in a taxi and pulled from her bag the book she had brought to read on the way:
“Everything you love, you will eventually lose.” — Stephen King
* Inspired by the title of the book Again from Those Streets by Bijan Najdi.
Second Memory — by Parastoo Honarjoo
Sometimes I think that when our children hear stories about how we used to read and buy books, their feelings might resemble ours when we read about people writing and reading on clay tablets.
How distant those days feel now, the days when we would wait eagerly for a trip to the bookstore, for wandering among the shelves, turning books over in our hands, and choosing one.
For me, reading books and the incomparable joy of it began in elementary school, when I tried to read whatever my mother was reading whenever she could not continue reading it herself, or when I stayed with my aunt during holidays and joined her in reading long novels.
But buying books for myself began around middle school. Back then, we lived on Aghdasiyeh Street, and in the whole neighborhood, there was perhaps only one small bookstore in Sadaf Bazaar. Every two or three weeks my father would take me there so I could buy books. A middle-aged man, perhaps the owner, perhaps the bookseller, worked there and had come to recognize me. Every time we visited, we asked his help in choosing books. Later, I realized how important and influential he had been, both for me and for others like me.
I remember once he handed me The Little Match Girl, and I became so upset after reading it that I kept wondering: “How did he think this was a good book?”
My readings of Jules Verne and Victor Hugo, abridged versions, began in that same shop.
Then we moved to Fatemi. There were many more bookstores nearby, and my father made one of the most exciting among them our regular haunt. Whenever he wanted to make me happy, he would take me to Hashemi Publishing on the southeast side of Vali-e Asr Square.
It was not only large, it was filled floor-to-ceiling with bookshelves, and to reach the books, there was a ladder with wheels at the bottom and rails attached to the ceiling. In the middle of the store were stacks of books displayed face-out.
It was a kind of heaven on earth.
Almost every special book I wanted could be found there, and whenever I did not know what I wanted, one or two booksellers acted like ChatGPTs before ChatGPT. They only needed me to say what kind of books I liked and what I had enjoyed before, and immediately they would recommend similar books and point me straight to them among all those shelves.
Years later, when I returned, the booksellers were no longer people passionately in love with bookstores and acted as an encyclopedia of books.
Last year, it had closed entirely.
