George Whitman
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This biography of a living person does not cite any references or sources. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (April 2007) Find sources: (George Whitman – news, books, scholar) |
George Whitman (born ca. 1912) is the proprietor of the Shakespeare and Co. bookstore in Paris. He was a contemporary of such Beat poets as Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. He sometimes poses as a grandson or grand-nephew of American poet Walt Whitman.[citation needed]
He was born in Salem, Massachusetts, and although his exact age is generally undisclosed, some think his birthday is December 12, 1913, although a US drivers license seen by Captain Franko in 1989 carried the date as December 12, 1911.[citation needed] In 2006 Whitman was awarded the "Officier des Arts et Lettres" medal by the French government for his contribution to the arts over the previous fifty years.
Contents |
[edit] Bookstore
Whitman founded his bookstore in the 1951 and named it after Sylvia Beach's earlier Paris bookstore "Shakespeare and Company". His shop, located at 37 rue de la Bûcherie in Paris, was opened in August 1951 (two years before a sister bookshop City Lights was opened in San Francisco by Lawrence Ferlinghetti) by George Whitman with an inheritance from his aunt. He called the shop "Le Mistral" after his first French girlfriend. From the very first night he allowed travellers, young writers, poets and artists to lodge in exchange with a hand in cleaning the shop, building shelves and selling books. Sylvia Beach, whose famous shop was on 12, rue de l'Odéon, was still in Paris and came to Le Mistral to see the writers of the new generation, whom Anaïs Nin called Xerox artists,[citation needed] read aloud their new work. Whitman modeled his shop after Sylvia Beach's. As it was the only free English-language lending library in Paris, the Beats who arrived at the Beat Hotel on rue Git-le-Coeur quickly found their way to the small bookshop and made a place for themselves there. In 1962, Sylvia Beach died, willing to George Whitman a good deal of her private books and the rights to the name Shakespeare and Company. In 1964, Le Mistral was renamed Shakespeare and Company. Whitman named his daughter, born in 1981, after his bibliophilic predecessor; Sylvia Beach Whitman took over the running of the shop in 2003 at age 22.[1]
Whitman allows young travellers to stay in the residential quarters of his rue de la Bûcherie premises, in exchange for two hours' work in the bookshop each day; you are also encouraged to read a book a day during your stay. All Whitman asked of his guests is to provide a short "biography" and photograph and work a short period in the shop. On Sunday mornings he traditionally cooked his guests a pancake breakfast, brewing up a thin ersatz "syrup" out of some burnt sugar and water.
[edit] Recent notice
After years of local reknown, Whitman has begun to receive international notice. A documentary titled "Portrait of a Bookstore as an Old Man", by Gonzague Pichelin and Benjamin Sutherland, ran on The Sundance Channel in fall 2005. At the end of the film, Whitman trims his hair using the flame of a candle, sets his hair on fire, then damps it out.
On Wednesday, September 26, 2007, journalist Gerry Hadden's story on George Whitman, his daughter Sylvia, and Shakespeare & Company aired on NPR's The World (a co-production of the BBC, Public Radio International (PRI), and the Boston radio station WGBH).[2][3]
[edit] References
- ^ "The "Found Generation" -- The New Literary Paris Legends", International Living, August 11, 2004
- ^ "Legendary Paris bookshop changes hands", NPR - The World (audio, 4:30 min)
- ^ Gerry Hadden photos on Flickr
