Madrid’s international bookshop Desperate Literature has launched a crowdfunding campaign with the aim of raising €25,000 for renovation as the shop moves into its new premises.
According to the owners, the team is required to move the shop out of its current space in Madrid’s Calle Campomanes “to make way for tourist flats”. The booksellers were informed that the building had been sold to a large investment firm in early 2023, and the bookshop will remain in its current location until May 2025. “We were heartbroken that we were given no opportunity to stay and that short-term rentals are putting an end to almost half a century of bookshops in the building,” said Terry Craven and Charlotte Delattre, the owners of the shop.
The shop will relocate to a space formerly occupied by a fruit and vegetable store in a street called Calle Cava Baja. The funds raised through the crowdfunding campaign will go towards covering part of the renovation of the new space, which is set to cost €80,000 in total, and the rest will be covered by loans and potential government funding.
The bookshop stocks titles in English, French and Spanish, and run weekly events with authors. Spain’s first English-language poetry festival was hosted by the bookshop in 2019, and the booksellers also run the Desperate Literature Prize for Short Fiction.
“Just as during the pandemic, we felt supported by our community when we announced the news and hope to continue to provide a space for multi-lingual, independent literary culture in Madrid,” the owners added. “We see this happening over and over again to the local shops and cultural spaces unique to the city, so we feel lucky to be given the chance to continue our work in Cava Baja.”