Bookstore weaves a new village story

陈小将

The day before Huize Rural Bookstore of Librairie Avant-Garde in Baiwu village of Nagu town opened in late May, Zhang Ruifeng received a text message that two of three balloons disappeared from the field where they were installed.

Located in Huize county, Qujing in Yunnan province, the bookstore is a new branch of the Nanjing-based bookstore chain, Librairie Avant-Garde, in Jiangsu province. Zhang is its rotating president.

The three balloons were part of the Librairie Avant-Garde Poetry Festival, which Chen Qinshaofu and his team attached poem posters to throughout the village.

"Baiwu (white fog) is a poetic name. Poetry is a signature section in the bookstore, so we thought, 'why not organize a poetry festival in the village'," Zhang says.

Growing up in a village in Northeast China's Jilin province, Chen, 32, runs a poetry-themed shop in Kunming, Yunnan. When he first arrived in the village, he recalled his early days in the countryside.

"When I walked around the village, several poetic details emerged in my mind," he says.

"I love German poet Jan Wagner. His poem Nail would look great on a door or wall. Welsh R.S. Thomas' poems about village life and Seamus Heaney's works, like Digging, The Pitchfork and The Forge, also fit perfectly in a village setting," he says.