New Delhi, Jun 15 (PTI): For decades, an ordinary footpath in Old Delhi would go through a remarkable transformation on Sunday and turn into a haven for bibliophiles.
A new book, "The Sunday Book Bazaar: Daryaganj and the Making of a Reading Public in Delhi", charts the history and cultural legacy of this unique literary marketplace.
The book, currently available on pre-order, will hit the stands on June 25. It is written by author Kanupriya Dhingra and published by Speaking Tiger Books.
In "The Sunday Book Bazaar", Dhingra traces the life of this remarkable market -- from its roots in the centuries old book cultures of Shahjahanabad to its rise as a second-hand book world of its own, and from its displacement and legal battles to its relocation inside Mahila Haat.
"This is a story of resilience: of books emerging in the unlikeliest places, in chaotic yet somehow orderly ways, carried by booksellers who have built a reading public across decades of Sundays while surviving scrutiny, censorship, and indifference.
"Researching it meant moving between archives and pavements, records and memories, always returning to the same insight -- that every city has its own joyful, unruly, necessary space, taken for granted until it disappears. Daryaganj is Delhi's," Dhingra, a scholar of book history and print cultures, said in her statement.
The Daryaganj Sunday Book Bazaar is renowned for drawing book lovers from different corners of Delhi into its orbit -- students on tight budgets, collectors, curious tourists, families, and lifelong 'shauqeen' chasing the thrill of an unexpected find.
Its pavement stacks offer a world between covers: textbooks and comics, rare first editions and pirated bestsellers, forgotten magazines and discarded library holdings.
Built by migrant booksellers, sustained by bargain hunters and bibliophiles, and animated by the rhythms of the street, the bazaar grew into far more than a marketplace and became one of Delhi's most beloved cultural landmarks.
Described by the publishers as part "urban history, part ethnography, and part memoir", "The Sunday Book Bazaar" asks a simple question: 'what makes a market more than a place of commerce'.
"Who gets to read, who gets to sell, and who gets to occupy public space? And what does a city lose when it tides away the unruly, democratic spaces where its readers first learn to browse, bargain, linger, and belong?"
The book has also earned praise from eminent historian Ramachandra Guha, who called it "mandatory reading" for citizens of Delhi seeking to understand their city more deeply -- even, or perhaps especially, those who do not themselves buy or read books.
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This report was published from a syndicated wire feed. Apart from the headline, the EdexLive Desk has not edited the copy.
