Estoril Books is a small

bookselling Bookselling is the commercial trading of books, which is the retail and distribution end of the publishing process. People who engage in bookselling are called booksellers, bookdealers, book people, bookmen, or bookwomen. History The foundi ...

chain in

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu language, Zulu and Xhosa language, Xhosa: eGoli ) (colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, Jo'burg or "The City of Gold") is the most populous city in South Africa. With 5,538,596 people in the City of Johannesburg alon ...

. This family-owned business, when compared to the estimated 1,600 bookshops in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

, had a disproportionate influence on South African authors. Today Estoril Bookshops are located in suburban malls. But Estoril Books has its roots in

Hillbrow Hillbrow () is an inner city residential neighbourhood of Johannesburg, Gauteng Province, South Africa. It is known for its high levels of population density, unemployment, poverty, prostitution and crime. It had a large and active Jewish commun ...

where this bookstore contributed to a strong literary heritage in the city. The first Estoril bookshop was established in 1963 on Pretoria street, next to Checkers. This store preceded the better known

Exclusive Books Exclusive Books is one of South Africa's largest bookselling chains with stores throughout South Africa, and one store in Gaborone, Botswana and one in Windhoek, Namibia. As of 1 December 2013, the chain is owned and operated by a private group ...

, which established its first flagship store in Hillbrow a decade later, in 1973, next to the Hillbrow Record Centre in Pretoria Street. Exclusive Books would become popular because the application of behavioral economics, extended shopping hours and combined audio and literary entertainment. Under Apartheid, it was the Estoril bookstore that avoided the censor's attention and earned the reputation as a counter-culture haven, where well- known authors, like

Mark Gevisser Mark Gevisser (born 1964) is a South African author and journalist. His latest book is ''The Pink Line: Journeys Across the World's Queer Frontiers'' (2020). Previous books include ''A Legacy of Liberation: Thabo Mbeki and the Future of the Sou ...

could access a range of international magazines, three months after they were published. At that time, the Estoril Hillbrow bookshop acted as a literary port of entry, for European immigrants to access and read books. This echoes another literary genre, the "Jim comes to Jo’burg novels”, where Johannesburg is once seen as a place of action and opportunity, but then becomes a place of disillusionment and despair where the rural protagonists eek out a living in the urban metropolis.

References

Bookstores of South Africa {{SouthAfrica-stub