A Traveling Art Installation Brings Spanish-Language Books To Boston

Walk into Librería Donceles and you see a normal used bookstore, massive stacks of books and a cash register up front. But underneath the books, it's an interactive art display, a performance space that's as much about the books as it is about living Latino culture.

"Despite the fact that Latino communities throughout the United States are growing exponentially, we have less and less access to books in Spanish," said Pablo Helguera, the artist behind Librería Donceles. "In New York City, where I live, the last major bookstore that sold books in Spanish closed 10 years ago."

For Helguera, the project is a response on one hand to the disappearance of bookstores, and on the other, to the invisibility of the Spanish language.

[...]

The bookstore has more than 10,000 Spanish language titles. The range is spellbinding: from art books to kid's books to cook books to books of poetry. And you can buy them, but only one at a time.

 

Read more - Wbur.org

 

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