The House
Quixote's Cove is a specialty bookstore that focuses on fiction, comic, philosophy and business books. It also functions as a library, creating an environment that invites people to stay and read. It is located in a separate 2 story building within the premise of New Orleans Jawalakhel, with its own access routes from both the cafe premise as well as a separate entrance from the main road..
The Details
Quixote’s Cove takes its name from the over 400 year old Miguel de Cervantes’ classic, Don Quixote. It is considered to be the first and possibly the greatest of Novels to be published in the western world. The reason for the title of the first Novel is not one of age, but of style and content. It is the first literary representation of the Novel – a reflection of our being in the world at a specific time and space, forever in a quest for meaning through the bending of imagination onto reality. Don Quixote tells the tale of a slightly demented, slightly heroic, slightly foolish and slightly cunning old man who sets himself upon the noble job of knight errantry. Don Quixote, an elderly provincial nobody, described as absurdly tall, dry skinned and sunken cheeked is obsessed with chivalric literature. Uninterrupted reading combined with a lack of sleep undermines his reason but gives him the belief to restore the lost profession of knight-errantry. He is accompanied by a character that is his opposite, the grounded and rounded, slightly dim witted but plain speaking, Sancho Panza. Fantasy and reality then synergize into one.
History
The building, in which Quixote’s Cove is located was built in the early 1930s and has a rich history. During the 1930s and 40s, it was used as a catholic church by the Jesuits and was a central but secret convening ground for the Praja Parishad, the first pro-democracy and anti-Rana regime revolutionary party. As a secret gathering ground, the building has witnessed clandestine meetings between some of Nepal’s most prominent political leaders and poets including Ganesh Man Singh and B.P. Koirala along with Martyrs Shukra Raj Shastri and Ganga lal Shrestha. The walls still reverberate with their spirit of freedom and the words of the poet Lekhnath Paudel, who used to recite his poem there regularly, still float in the air. The bookstore shall seek to revive its past in a more public manner and become the convening ground for today’s thinkers and doers.
