The Parleuses Bookstore: a final evening full of emotion

Last night, the bookstore Les Parleuses said goodbye to its audience. In front of the shop, in the heart of Nice, around a hundred people gathered to celebrate eight years of literary and cultural adventure. An evening that was both festive and moving, organized around the launch of the novel The Daughters of the Bookstore by Giulia Foïs.

Early in the evening, Defly Street gradually filled up in front of the bookstore. Loyal readers, neighborhood regulars, friends and curious onlookers came to share this symbolic moment. Quickly, several dozen people gathered in front of the small independent shop’s storefront.

In total, more than a hundred people attended this evening organized outdoors. Some people sat on the curbs, others remained standing, glass in hand, to listen to the speeches. In a warm atmosphere, many exchanged memories related to the bookstore, opened in 2017 by Maud Pouyé and Anouk Aubert.

A novel inspired by the bookstore

The closing evening was also an opportunity to celebrate the release of the novel The Daughters of the Bookstore, published that very day. Questioned in front of the public, author Giulia Foïs explained that the idea for the book was born after her meeting with the booksellers. “There was quite an obvious connection,” she explains.

When she was asked to write the “bible” for a series, she immediately thought of this place. “Right away, I thought of this bookstore,” she explains. For the author, a bookstore represents much more than just a shop: “It is a place of resistance and emancipation.” The novel, whose plot unfolds in Nice around a bookstore, thus directly echoes the history of the place.

A page turning

Throughout the evening, applause and smiles mingled with a certain emotion. Many readers wanted to thank the booksellers for these years of exchanges and literary discoveries. After eight years in business, the closure marks the end of an important chapter for this place that had become familiar to many people in Nice.

But for Maud Pouyé and Anouk Aubert, this departure remains a conscious choice. The two booksellers are now about to begin a new professional adventure in Vaucluse, far from the Côte d’Azur metropolis.

In front of the bookstore, the moment was mainly for reunions and final exchanges. A way for the regulars of the place to say goodbye to a space that will have marked Nice’s cultural life for nearly a decade.