So on March 8th, 2002 they did it and they named it “Diwan”, a bookstore along with a café inside of it, you can drink your coffee while you’re reading your book or your magazine and listening to some nice music. Youth in Cairo loved the idea and got attracted to the place instantly, changing what some people had in mind that the Egyptian youth are not into culture. And as this sympathy started to grow between the place and those youth, we started noticing that the five partners had many and many of brilliant ideas to keep attracting the community to Diwan: holding art galleries in it from time to time, bringing famous musicians to sign their CDs for fans in Diwan, inviting bestsellers to discuss issues with their readers, story telling for kids with three languages and more. In an interview with one of the five young partners, Hind Wassef, I had the chance to chat with her about Diwan; that place in Cairo where you can peacefully breathe.
1. How did you get the idea? What were the steps taken to realize it and how did it all start?
We are five partners, friends. Each one of us was at a crossroad in our life, My sister and me for example we were doing NGO work, we were always dealing with big organizations and we thought it’s time to do something on our own, moving to something new.
The model is not something that we’ve invented, it exists all over the world, there’s everywhere that bookshop and café thing, there’s Barnes and Noble for example, so we thought why not trying.
We at first wanted a nice atmosphere, but in the same time nothing westernized, we had in mind that Arab motif that you can easily notice in the way we decorated the place, the packaging, and the logo. So we set up a company, we began to approach the stockiest, as to buy books, films, DVDs and so on. And we began to set up our opening inventory. It actually took much longer than we’ve expected as we’re now in the market since two years.
2. I understand it was quite a challenge to start this project, especially the fact that culture and reading isn’t the first priority for youth in Cairo. Would you tell me a bit about this?
Actually, every time we mentioned the idea to people they were getting skeptical and said no, people in Egypt don’t have reading among their priorities, but we thought that whenever there’s a good place it will attract people and customers.
It’s not that people are not into reading in Egypt, but it’s that Egyptians and Arabs in general from my point of view you have to go to them first, you really have to attract them and make them come. And then we thought that location is key, you have to be in people’s way so we’d chosen that place on that main street in Zamalek which played a major role in attracting people.
3. From your point of view, what are the most urgent issues in your city? What do you think you can do to help solving them? And how do you think youth can get involved?
I think that young people and particularly young women need to find a place where they’d feel safe and secure, being sure that no one’s going to approach them, no one’s going to bother them and I think that this is beginning to happen, in places like the cafes that are recently opening here and like here in Diwan, as they’re trying to preserve that safe atmosphere I’m talking about which is not the case if you go to any restaurant or a bar as a woman on your own.
Most of public places aren’t that friendly to me. For example, when I walk in the street I have to be looking down or just in front of me so no one would think that I’m open to suggestions or any kinds of comments and I think that any successful modern place (daytime place), should be providing the same thing to young girls.
I believe as well that culture is dropped from the priorities of youth in our community it is not really featured in their lives, as when it comes to youth here people always talk sports. As young people always go from school or work to sports clubs and so on. At first, we didn’t have this on mind, helping solve these problems and reorienting youth into culture. But, when we began to think about the place we realized that the place is taking on it’s own life, and it begins to take over your ideas and we began to think that this place could be a great place where people can feel that they can sit on their own, and that’s it’s not an odd scene when a girl sits by her own, and this doesn’t happen everywhere.
3. What inspires you? What keeps you going in difficult times?
People‘s feedback really inspires me, and the constructive criticism keeps me going in difficult times. Because I’m somehow used to that unconstructive criticism, when people criticize just for the sake of criticizing, but, it’s really different for Diwan, because when you love something or some place and feel it’s yours you criticize in a constructive way, you really care about improving it.
Because like you said earlier Diwan became like a home for a lot of people, a place where you can go on a frequent basis, you love the place so when you give any comments about it, it’s for the sake of seeing it better
4. The name Diwan is so inspiring, so how did you get to choose it?
Well, we wanted to have an Arabic name, we didn’t want anything westernized. Well, of course this place is for everyone not specifically Egyptians or Arabs but we didn’t see any use of having a western name for it.
We thought of many Arabic names at first but then we’d chosen Diwan as it means a meeting of people, like The Sultan’s diwan which Arabs used referring as the meeting of the Sultan with the ministers and so on, or a diwan of poetry which means a collection of poems.
5. Diwan became one of the most popular places for people in Cairo, being a lot more than a bookstore, being a café as well, an art gallery as well as a platform for many other cultural activities, and the thing making it more special is the way it’s impacting the surrounding community, and changing it gradually especially that culture and reading wasn’t the first priority to a lot of youth. So, do you get those brilliant ideas (café, art gallery, inviting bestsellers, etc.) randomly or it’s through a specific plan?
Well, we had in mind from the beginning holding those activities such as art galleries and inviting book sellers to discussion with their readers, musicians signing their CDs and so on, it wasn’t meant to be just a bookstore. You have to attract the people, and there are a lot of places selling books and DVDs, so we were having the intention of holding that number of cultural events. So no, it didn’t come randomly.
But after a while we got that idea of holding those sessions of story telling for kids, which is so important from my point of view, as it builds the personality of the kid and empowers his imagination, as there’s no such activities for kids ,they go to school and after school maybe to the club, so it’s only sports. And kids got very attracted by those reading sessions, they love it as they also interact with other kids through those stories, and their parents got interested as well and they come to those sessions with their kids. And then we got to attract the parents by attracting their kids, so they became more interested in Diwan and the other thing we offer. Actually, we thought we’d attract the parents’ first then get to attract their kids
6. The location of Diwan in one of the most important main streets in Zamalek, the heart of the city of Cairo is making it really unique, but, do you have the intention to open another branch for Diwan all over the country?
As I said earlier, when we first had the idea of that project we thought that location is key, it has to be in people’s way. So, when we chose this place it was a gymnasium up till 5 years ago and then it stayed closed for two years, so we approached the people and took it for Diwan.
I think that being on the main street is one of the components of success of the place; maybe if it was a couple of meters away it’d have impacted the success of the place.
Right now, I don’t think we’re ready to open another branch. Some time later maybe in a couple of years or so our operations and management would hopefully become more structured and I would like to see one other store open definitely.
7. Putting into consideration the success accomplished in the two first years of Diwan, how do you see Diwan after 5 years?
We feel we are still learning, making a lot of mistakes and learning from them. We are therefore not quite ready for a second branch. Within the next five years, yes, our operations and management will hopefully become airtight and more structured and I would like to see one other store open definitely. More than that, I don't know. We are also working on our website and I believe this is also a big step and must be in place very soon. What we do not want to jeopardize is the personal feel that we have in the store now. If we open too many branches some of that will be lost and we believe this is something you cannot replace. The friendly atmosphere, the feeling that this is an extension of your home/living room.
8. On which basis do you choose your staff? Do you require a certain criteria of people to handle the store while you’re not there?
Yes, we do have a certain criteria, they must be presentable with a minimum of English so they can at least read the titles of newspapers, titles of books and so on, and they should have the willingness to learn and acquire knowledge.
9. What were the components of success of Diwan?
It’s mainly the harmony and the mutual respect between the five partners, each one has a specific role and is committed to fulfill it.
10. I believe that falling in the trap of being a bookstore for foreigners had been one of the obstacles you’ve faced. The beautiful packaging and printed materials with Arabic fonts, the logo and the Islamic style decoration of the place shows how you’re trying to deal with this problem. Would you tell me about this a little bit?
First of all, we wanted a nice atmosphere but like I said earlier nothing westernized we wanted an Arab motif ,like the Islamic motif that we used in the logo, the packaging, the bookmarks and the printed materials as well as the inside decoration of the place.
We had a great designer who was responsible of the layout of the place.
11. How do you manage to import that huge number of international books into Egypt?
Importing books was a big step for us to take. As we were a small and new operation some international publishers felt we were too risky to deal with at first. Then clearing all these books through customs and the usual bureaucracy was also a challenge. But with time and a few mistakes things became easier and ran more smoothly.
11. I was there in the anniversary of Diwan last March, when the five Egyptian bestsellers were invited to have a discussion with their readers and I remember that the Arab human development report was mentioned in the discussion, mentioning the issue of lack of translated books in Egypt whether from or into Arabic… Now we can easily notice that huge number of translated books mainly into Arabic, which proves that Diwan is playing a role in changing and improving the culture of the community in Egypt…Can you tell me about this?
Translated books from other languages into Arabic have always been available in Egypt to some degree. I think they are becoming more available and more popular. This is increasing our exposure to world literature, which is great. The Cairo International Book Fair aids in that as there is a tremendous amount of translated books on show and for sale from Syrian and Lebanese publishers. You may have to look really hard for them but they are there and they are on the rise. Because Diwan is in a visible location and attracts a wide variety of customer’s everyday and because we take a certain amount of care to display books in an attractive way, I think this makes our book selection more accessible and easy to browse through for the customer
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