Inside the newly opened Bafigghia Ubik Ortigia in Syracuse. Image: Ubik
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
‘We Want To Become a Gathering Place’
In the run-up to Frankfurter Buchmesse‘s (October 16 to 20) Guest of Honor Italy, there’s good news for readers in Syracuse on Sicily’s Ionian coast. This is south of Taormina and Catania, for those who know the terrain.
The one-mile-long island of Ortigia, which forms the old city center of Syracuse, has a new bookstore on Corso Giacomo Matteotti (No.38 if you’re in the neighborhood where the goddess Leto gave birth to Artemis.).
Now open, the new store is in the same spot that housed the Libreria Gabò Ubik, which closed last fall with the untimely death of its owner, Livia Gagliano. Some of us might recall the Calvin Klein and Marella stores across the street.
Newly rejuvenated as the Bafigghia Ubik Ortigia, the bookstore is in a simple but utilitarian facility, packed with books.
Maria La Runa, the owner of the new Ubik franchise on Syracuse’s Ortigia, at the July 22 opening party for the bookstore. Image: Ubik
For our international readers unfamiliar with Ubik, this is a chain of Italian bookstores currently reaching some 150 points of sale, a franchise network of the distributor Emmelibri-Messaggerie. The name Ubik comes from the Latin for everywhere—seemingly the goal of all bookstore chains. And this particular chain stresses the singularity of each of its shops as a plus.
Related article: Italy’s Messaggerie-Libraccio Alliance: A Shift in Ownership. Image: DMB, Libraccio
An opening party was held on the evening of July 22, and in the tradition of the southern coastal towns, the store—like many others businesses nearby—will remain open in the evenings through the summer.
Events involving readings and workshops are being planned as the new story gains traction, according to its new owner, Maria La Runa.
“We want to become a gathering place,” La Runa says, “for meet-ups and cultural events for the city—a place where you can feel at home, sit down, take a book, discuss, talk, where customers are the true promoters and enablers of the shop.”
The mother company, Ubik, La Runa says, puts a premium on supporting the specific location in which each store is placed. And that leads to the store’s inclusion of the work of local authors, books from Sicilia and other parts of the south, as well as books in multiple languages for tourists.
At the new Ubik bookstore in Syracuse. Image: Ubik
More from Publishing Perspectives on mergers and acquisitions is here, more on bookselling is here, more on bookstores is here, more on Italy and the Italian market is here, more on Guest of Honor Italy at Frankfurter Buchmesse this year is here.