The feminist bookstore “Des Femmes” has been honoring women’s literary creation since 1974 in Paris.

From Marguerite Duras to Virginia Woolf

A unique feminist bookstore in Paris

The first “Des femmes” bookstore opened its doors in May 1974 in Paris, at 68 rue des Saints-Pères, in the 7th arrondissement.
Created practically at the same time as the Editions des femmes, by the MLF-Psychanalyse et Politique founded and led by Antoinette Fouque since October 1968, it offers not only the collections of the latter, but all the available books written by women. . This green, beautiful and welcoming shop, where books and newspapers, including in foreign languages, can be consulted in the midst of plants and flowers, run by activists who become booksellers, is immediately known as a place of meeting and speaking, a center cultural and academic resources, information and mobilization meetings… Women in movement and research from all over the world come there, writers, actresses, as well as men, intellectuals and/or politicians, sympathizers and curious about the movement of civilization which manifests itself there. It is soon joined by the women’s bookshops of Marseilles then of Lyons.

Also an art gallery

At the end of 1980, the Parisian bookstore moved to 74, rue de Seine, in the 6th arrondissement and expanded to become the women’s bookstore-gallery, where many artists exhibited, including Kate Millett, Michèle Knoblauch, Sonia Delaunay, Tina Modotti , Erica Lennard, Louise Nevelson, Popy Moreni, Françoise Gilot… This initiative, supported by a collection of art and art history books published by Éditions des femmes, was a pioneer and had a profound influence on the condition of women artists. , then underestimated and even denigrated. Thirty years later, the Center Georges Pompidou devoted its first specific exhibition to them.
The rue de Seine bookshop is also contemporary with the equally pioneering collection, “La Bibliothèque des voix”, which offers texts read by their authors and by great actors: from Nathalie Sarraute to Marguerite Duras, in passing through Virginia Woolf and Julien Gracq, from Fanny Ardant.

Des Femmes bookstore
35 rue Jacob, 75006 Paris
Tel: 01 42 60 93 76
Monday from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. and Tuesday to Saturday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
bookstore[@]desfemmes.fr
@librairie_des_femmes