George Whitman
George Whitman (born December 12, 1913 in East Orange , New Jersey , † December 14, 2011 in Paris ) was an American - French bookseller and bohemian .
Career
George Whitman was born in New Jersey in 1913 and raised in an academic setting in Salem , Massachusetts . In 1935, after college, Whitman began what he himself calls the Bohemian Holiday . For four years he traveled through North and South America as well as Hawaii in search of experiences as a hobo .
He then enrolled at Harvard and went to Greece as a medic during World War II . In 1946 the GI Bill enabled him to study at the Sorbonne in Paris.
In 1951, George Whitman opened the English-language bookstore Le Mistral in Paris on Rue de la Bûcherie, not far from the Latin Quarter on the Rive Gauche , just a stone's throw from Notre Dame . The Beat Hotel , the Parisian focal point for writers, artists and musicians (similar to the Chelsea Hotel in New York), is just a few blocks away from the bookstore.
George Whitman followed in the footsteps of Silvia Beach with the bookstore, which became a meeting place for the Beat Generation such as Allen Ginsberg , Jack Kerouac , William S. Burroughs . Silvia Beach established a meeting place for the English-speaking Lost Generation , for example Ernest Hemingway , F. Scott Fitzgerald , Ezra Pound and James Joyce , with her bookstore Shakespeare and Company , which was not far away and which was closed in 1946 . In 1964, two years after Silvia Beach's death and at the same time as William Shakespeare's 400th birthday , George Whitman renamed his bookstore Le Mistral to Shakespeare & Company .
One of the early visitors to Shakespeare & Co , Lawrence Ferlinghetti , opened the City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco in 1966 , which became a meeting place for avant-garde authors, some of whose works were published there.
George Whitman allowed young travelers, mostly non-established writers, to stay in his bookstore for decades. Each of the guests should read one book per day, with particularly large books it could be two days for one book. Small activities that took no more than two hours a day, such as preparing the bookstore displays, building bookshelves, selling in the bookstore, as well as cleaning and tidying up, were carried out by the overnight guests. In addition, each traveler left a short biography with a photo. The traditional breakfast with pancakes took place on Sunday mornings and was attended by all current residents.
Whitman's motto was: “Give what you can, take what you need. / Give what you can, take what you need ”.
At the age of 68, George Whitman became a father. His daughter Sylvia Beach Whitman , born in 1981 , has been running Shakespeare & Co since 2003 , of course with a few modernizations.
On the fourth floor of his house, which George Whitman had gradually bought and where the bookstore had expanded, Whitman died shortly after his 98th birthday. He was buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris.
Portrait of a Bookstore as an Old Man is a 2003 documentary about George Whitman and his bookstore community Shakespeare & Co in Paris. Benjamin Sutherl and Gonzague Pichelin directed the film.
In 2006 George Whitman was awarded the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres .
Individual evidence
- ^ NY Times, Marlise Simons, December 14, 2011 George Whitman, Paris Bookseller and Cultural Beacon, Is Dead at 98, accessed June 9, 2016
- ↑ a b Vanityfair In a Bookstore in Paris , accessed on June 9, 2016 (English).
- ↑ bbc news, Christine Finn, December 17, 2011 Shakespeare and Co: A writer's haven on the River Seine , accessed on June 9, 2016.
- ^ Independent George Whitman: Proprietor of the Shakespeare and Company bookshop , accessed June 9, 2016.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Whitman, George |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American-French bookseller and bohemian |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 12, 1913 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | East Orange , New Jersey |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 14, 2011 |
| Place of death | Paris |