Bookstores Without Borders

In different countries, in different languages, bookstores create community through reading.

Imagine you are living in the capital city of Guatemala. You need an escape, a place to find peace in your daily routine. Finding yourself in Cayalá, the outdoor shopping mall in Zona 16 of the city, you see a sign that reads “Kita Penas,” or “Forget Your Worries.” Prepared to do just that, you step inside. Finding yourself surrounded by paintings of barriletes—famous Guatemalan kites—the colors vibrate, reminding you of what it means to be Guatemalteco.  

Next, you notice all the books. Each title holds the key to a different magical realm or a new idea to get lost in. This bookstore, nestled between the Western Highlands of Guatemala and many of the country’s active volcanoes, is the community you have been looking for—your third place.

Luis De Sousa founded Kita Penas six years ago with his business partner, Daniel Uzcategui. They shared a dream of building a space, or a “third place,” for youth to learn and grow through books. Today, that third place has two locations. 

“Kita Penas is an example of what you can achieve with a safe space that represents the community and the culture,” De Sousa said. 

American sociologist Ray Oldenburg conceptualized the term “third place” in the 1980s. The first space is your home, the second is your work, and the third space is a community spot where free social interaction occurs. Oldenburg deemed third spaces to be essential to democracy. The concept has gained in popularity over the years. 

Bookstores like Kita Penas are quintessential third places, serving their communities and often becoming cornerstones for activism, from Portland, Oregon, to Tehran. No matter where you go, books are a unifier and a social connector. They create a third place based on knowledge, reading, and new ideas. 

“Books are fundamental, not only in opening the minds of people,” De Sousa said, “but they are also indispensable in the growth of countries. They allow people to learn, to be critical, to think and be able to analyze and make decisions that help democracy.” 

Elise Shumock in her bookstore The Book Pub

Elise Schumock is proud to be a part of this tradition. She moved from Los Angeles to Portland, Oregon, 16 years ago to start Rose City Book Pub, a used bookstore that supports local authors and serves cold beer. 

“I knew this was going to be a third place; I knew it was gonna be the kind of place that drew regulars,” Schumock said. “I just had no idea how much it was gonna turn out to be the thing it is.” 

Located in Northeast Portland and featuring local art on its walls, the Book Pub has become a gathering place where readers from diverse backgrounds and with a variety of political views come together. It hosts its own unorthodox trivia night, making it an excellent representation of Portland’s unofficial motto: “Keep Portland Weird.”  

“Just having books here has made a self-selecting group of people, because the kind of people who are afraid of ideas are afraid of books. And that’s a turnoff to them. And so those people just don’t come here,” Schumock said. 

According to a study by PEN America, a nonprofit advocacy group supporting free expression and human rights, more than 10,000 book bans were recorded in public schools across the U.S. during the 2023–24 school year. Most of the titles affected were ones that depicted LGBTQ+ characters and people of color.  

This push to censor what kids can and cannot read has reinforced Schumock’s mission to make her bookstore a place of inclusion.   

“Just the fact that this place doesn’t feel welcoming, doesn’t feel comfortable to people who are intolerant, has made it a very, very welcoming place for the rest of us,” she said. 

While book bans are becoming more common in the U.S., in places like Tehran, selling certain books can mean punishment as extreme as execution.  

With the establishment of Islamic rule in Iran after the revolution in 1979, books became heavily controlled by the government. In what was once a very liberal and cosmopolitan country, praised for its cultural relevance, titles from before the revolution or anything considered critical of the government or Islam became illegal to sell or own.  

But reading and literature remain a central part of Iranian culture, and the need for uncensored knowledge persists.  

Underground bookstores line the corners of Enghelab Square near the country’s oldest university, and book vendors lay out blankets on the sidewalk, ready to pack up their collections should they ever need to make a quick exit. 

According to a local, this is the best place to find banned books, and the sellers of these books risk arrest for sharing them, or even answering questions about such books from a Western journalist.  

Repressive regimes know that literacy is power, but so do the people. And many bookstore owners are motivated by this particular role that books play in society. 

In Guatemala in the 1980s, thousands of Indigenous people were slaughtered in a genocidal campaign supported by the U.S.-backed government, and as a result about 33 percent of Indigenous people in Guatemala today are illiterate, according to the Guatemala Literacy Project. Luis De Sousa hopes that Kita Penas can help to lower this number a bit.  

“People who read are people less manipulated,” De Sousa said. “They are people who can make their own decisions and who can move forward, changing the rhythm and the destiny of their country.” 

Alex Couraud (Guatemala 2018–20) is an award-winning multimedia journalist based in Portland, Oregon.