Malaga second-hand bookshop closes after 31 years with final sale of more than 20,000 books
Owner of Abadía Francisco Soler is retiring and closing the shop on Calle Tejón y Rodríguez
One of Malaga's emblematic second-hand bookstores in the city centre - Abadía - is closing after 31 years. Owner Francisco Soler is retiring at the age of 67, after managing more than 300,000 books.
He first founded the shop on Calle Comedias in 2000, but then relocated to Calle Tejón y Rodríguez 9 in 2015.
A few months ago, Soler set out to sell off his entire stock, some 35,000 copies, with a 75 per cent discount. "Some people even come with shopping trolleys. There are times when we have to close, because 20 people are inside at the same time and they can't fit," the owner says.
Entering the bookshop is like entering a cell in the Château d'If. Books and comics are stacked on shelves from floor to ceiling, within sight of a large Florentine-style rose window, with an image of the Virgin Mary cradling Jesus, flanked by two angels.
In Abadía, one can find everything from a 1939 edition of Jardiel Poncela's plays to comics by El Coyote, including the complete works of Blasco Ibáñez and Anatole France, crime novels with faded pages by Mickey Spillane and Dashiell Hammett or а 1649 copy of Memorial de la vida cristiana by Fray Luis de Granada.
Throughout his career, Soler has sold all types of books: "manuscripts, letters patent, first editions of Machado and Lorca, Mein Kampf, the Communist Manifesto, books by Lenin".
Soler doesn't plan on resting as much as a pensioner might. "I've been getting up at 7am since I was six years old, a habit that's hard to break," he says. He grew up in the El Palo district and studied Hispanic Philology.
"I've liked books since I was a child. Newspapers, books, magazines, cut-outs, anything made of paper. I was a great reader and collector. But my love for books really grew when I started my degree," Soler says.
Teaching was not for him. "It simply wasn't worth it," Soler says. It was then, "with no income and no future", that he took the most difficult decision of his life: to sell his books.
"In 1995, I registered as a professional bookseller from home. I made a very tidy postal catalogue with an Amstrad computer," he says. Despite the initial hardship that saying goodbye to his collection brought, his business started to do very well.
"I thought it was going to be a failure, but I had many contacts with collectors. I started to reinvest and suddenly I had a lot more books," Soler says.
At its peak, Abadía had a catalogue of 70,000 volumes, including comic books.
So that his house wouldn't collapse under the weight of books, Soler set up the Abadía bookshop, which at its peak had a catalogue of 70,000 volumes, including comic books. "I have always liked them. In fact, I did a dissertation on the language of comics. I was very attracted to the coexistence of image and word," Soler says.
His treasures include Cosas de Pepín, Máscara negra and the magazine Farolito - Malaga comics from the 50s in perfect condition.
Accustomed to selling books, Soler admits that it's not easy to close this chapter of his career. "There are days when I get nostalgic," he admits as he keeps welcoming prospective buyers until he runs out of books.
