Champions of Foreign-Language Books:

A small number of Taiwan’s independent bookshops specialize in foreign-language titles, satisfying the intellectual curiosity of those of us who wish to venture beyond Chinese as a literary medium.

Angélique Lin wants to give her customers time for dreaming at Maison Temps-Rêves.

Maison Temps-Rêves

Situated on Chaozhou Street in Taipei’s Da’an District, Maison Temps-Rêves is one of the few independent bookshops in Taiwan devoted to foreign-language picture books. This characterful little shop has white cube shelves lining the lower part of its walls, and wooden furniture that conveys a homely vibe. From the outside, it’s hard to tell what kind of shop it is. Proprietor Angélique Lin says this is intentional.

Uncluttered by towering bookshelves, Maison Temps-Rêves looks more like an art gallery than a bookshop. Original illustrations hang on one of the walls, and another area exhibits paper models used to create picture books. Judiciously selected, every book here is prominently displayed on a shelf or table, with the front cover facing us. Like unique works of art, they are all treated with love.

Despite its focus on picture books, Maison Temps-Rêves makes a bold statement about its raison d’être by deliberately excluding books on education or practical knowledge for children. The majority of the volumes we find here are European picture books, mostly from France. There are also Italian, Polish, and Portuguese titles, along with some Taiwanese, Korean, and Japanese works. Here visitors revel in discovering books independently published by artists—treasures rarely found even in their countries of origin. To assist readers, the shop supplies introductions and Chinese translations. All the books are carefully arranged and displayed according to their themes and genres.

A bookshop with a distinctive soul of its own, yet dedicated to a fair representation of diverse voices, Maison Temps-Rêves is known to picture-book lovers and artists at home and abroad. Among its patrons are many readers from Southern Taiwan and foreign tourists who put the shop on their must-visit lists.

Maison Temps-Rêves gives pride of place to picture books with strong aesthetic appeal, including pop-up books and barrier-grid animation books. The shop also hosts exhibitions of original illustrations.

Time for dreaming

Listening to Angélique Lin’s stories about her bookselling career, we obtain a greater insight into the special modus operandi at Maison Temps-Rêves.

In 1999, having graduated from the Department of French at Tamkang University, Lin started work at the newly founded Librairie Le Pigeonnier, an independent francophone bookshop in Taipei. An enterprising woman not usually given to soft speech, Lin nevertheless remembers her former employer, Françoise Zylberberg, with great affection. She tells us that Zylberberg embraced her uncompromising personality, giving her a freedom she had never experienced before.

Zylberberg’s gentleness had a profound influence on Lin. When in 2016 Lin finally decided to open her own bookshop, she wanted the new venture not only to reflect her own passion for visual art but also to engage in dialogue with the general public. This led to Maison Temps-Rêves specializing in picture books, because the stories they tell tend to have broad appeal.

Having spent many years engaging with foreign publishers, authors, and artists, Lin knew exactly what she wanted to stock in her shop. Her familiarity with the byways of the publishing world enabled her to pass over mainstream children’s books and zero in on less visible titles that stood out for their artistic, literary, and philosophical value.

Lin champions the beauties of every book in her shop. Hearing her speak, we are struck by her enthusiasm and immediately understand why she chose them. To be selected for Maison Temps-Rêves, each volume has to be special in its own ways, exuding uniqueness in its colors, binding, or general design. “I love diversity. After all, every one of us is meant to be different,” Lin says. Once a beneficiary of Zylberberg’s gentle tolerance, Lin now devotes herself to creating an all-­embracing, beautiful space which—as the shop’s name suggests—gives readers, authors, and artists plenty of time for dreaming.

Maison Temps-Rêves is not cluttered with books. Rather, it displays each of its picture books prominently, putting a spotlight on the colorful covers.

Librairie Le Pigeonnier

Lin’s former employer, Françoise Zylberberg (1944–2010), came from France and founded Taiwan’s first and only generalist francophone bookshop: Librairie Le Pigeonnier.

Zylberberg began her enterprise by selling postcards. Now situated in a lane off Taipei’s Songjiang Road, her bookshop continues to display on a spinner rack vintage postcards cut into various shapes that epitomize Taiwanese culture, such as clogs, firecrackers, the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, and sesame-seed cakes with deep-fried dough sticks. They bring a smile to visitors’ faces.

These ingenious creations remind us of Zylberberg’s roots in a country steeped in art. Prior to coming to Taiwan, Zylberberg had taught French as a foreign language at the University of Paris VII. In 1979 a teacher exchange program brought her to Taipei, where she taught French at National Taiwan University. In an age not yet blessed with advanced telecommunications technology, she wanted to send postcards to her family in France, only to discover that there wasn’t a lot of choice in local shops. This was why, in 1989, she started selling her own Pigeon Postcards.

Amélie Sun, who has worked at Librairie Le Pigeonnier for more than 25 years, takes us on a trip down memory lane, describing the different incarnations of the bookshop. If Pigeon Postcards marked the beginning, the business took on something of its present shape as a kiosk selling art books and gifts at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum. In 1999 Zylberberg expanded Le Pigeonnier to better serve Taiwan’s francophone community. She commissioned her partner, fashion designer Sophie Hong, to design the interior, turning it into the generalist bookshop we know today.

Entering the shop, we find ourselves embraced by a graceful, unpretentious space, with rows of shelves packed full of upwards of 10,000 books, arranged according to their content. In the early days of Le Pigeonnier, Taiwan wasn’t a popular tourist destination and locals rarely traveled overseas; the flow of information was also relatively limited. The shop served as a vital hub for Taiwan-based French speakers from countries such as France, Belgium, Canada, and Haiti, who found here a linguistic comfort zone where they could gather the information they needed. For Taiwanese readers, the shop has been like a secret garden where they can acquire an intimate knowledge of France.

Le Pigeonnier’s achievements were recognized by the French government in 2013, when it joined some 200 other bookshops across the world accredited by the Centre National du Livre as “librairies francophones de référence.” It remains the only bookshop in Taiwan that has received this honor.

Françoise Zylberberg (left), founder of Librairie Le Pigeonnier. (courtesy of Librairie Le Pigeonnier)

With the help of Le Pigeonnier, in 2006 the French pavilion at the Taipei International Book Exhibition featured a display of precious photographs of Taiwan taken by John Thomson when he toured the island with the Scottish missionary James Laidlaw Maxwell in 1871. (courtesy of Librairie Le Pigeonnier)

Librairie Le Pigeonnier houses more than 10,000 books. It is one of the few generalist bookshops in Taiwan that stock French-language titles.

Outreach

Zylberberg lived in Taiwan for over 30 years. Those who worked with her at Le Pigeonnier say she adapted very well to Taiwanese ways of life, and that as an admirer of Taiwan, she always kept her eyes peeled for affinities between her adopted country and her native France. For example, she appreciated the vitality and adaptability shared by the Taiwanese and the French, and found culinary similarities between stinky tofu and French cheeses, between pig’s-blood cake and boudin noir, and between Taiwanese offal dishes and foie gras.

Devoted to cultural exchange, Zylberberg not only ran Le Pigeonnier but also presented Salut les copains!, a French learning program produced by Taiwan’s CTS TV network. For this the French Ministry of Culture named her a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2010.

Zylberberg passed away the same year, but Sophie Hong inherited her mantle and continues to run Le Pigeonnier with great panache. Today, the bookshop remains true to Zylberberg’s cross-cultural legacy.

Decades of experience have shaped the staff at Le Pigeonnier into a resilient and versatile workforce. Besides selling and ordering books, the shop has organized talks by eminent sinophone writers such as Gao Xingjian, Wu Ming-yi, and Syaman Rapongan, providing interpretation into French for the benefit of francophone readers. The staff are also committed to expanding their outreach efforts by holding book ­festivals and screening Taiwanese films at nearby Yitong Park. Libraries and other public and private-sector organizations have tapped into the team’s familiarity with French-language books and asked them to order books or curate exhibitions.

Le Pigeonnier’s help and support have enabled France to be selected four times as Guest of Honor at the Taipei Inter­national Book Exhibition. For these events, the bookshop staff variously arranged for a display of original copperplate etchings from the Louvre, with demonstrations of the printing process; introduced the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, a prestigious collection of French classics known for its fine bindings; and organized an exhibition of pictures of Taiwan taken in 1871 by Scottish photographer John Thomson.

Zylberberg’s love of both Taiwan and France was a wind that helped her pigeon fly across vast distances, bringing news of France to Taiwan, and of Taiwan to France.

The staff at Librairie Le Pigeonnier are committed to reaching out to the general public.

Librairie Le Pigeonnier is accredited by the Centre National du Livre of the French Ministry of Culture as a “librairie francophone de référence.”

Librairie Le Pigeonnier started by selling postcards. The shop still displays many postcards cut into special shapes, bringing a smile to visitors’ faces.

What do francophone readers like?
Librairie Le Pigeonnier devotes shelf space to numerous Taiwanese works in French translation. Which of these are particularly popular among francophone readers?

Librairie Le Pigeonnier does its best to introduce French culture in all its breadth and depth to Taiwanese readers. The bookshop is a major non-governmental promoter of cultural exchanges between Taiwan and France. (courtesy of Librairie Le Pigeonnier)

Taiwanese literature

Representative literary works that have been translated into French include Pai Hsien-yung’s Taipei People (1971); Wu Ming-yi’s Routes in the Dream (2007, the first of Wu’s books to appear in French), The Man with the Compound Eyes (2011, winner of the Prix du Livre Insulaire), and The Magician on the Skywalk (2011); Kevin Chen’s Ghost Town (2019); Syaman Rapongan’s Eyes of the Ocean (2018); and the screenplay for Hou Hsiao-hsien’s 1989 historical drama A City of Sadness.

Humanities, social sciences, language learning

Books in the humanities and social sciences, such as historian Lee Hsiao-feng’s concise History of Taiwan (2002) and the memoir A Taste of Freedom (1972) by leading democracy activist Peng Ming-min, who studied in Paris in the 1950s, are especially in demand because they cater to readers who want to learn about Taiwan. Also in the spotlight are textbooks for learning Taiwanese, Amis, and Bunun by Rémy Gils, a French-born TV presenter at PTS who has settled in Taiwan; these are perfect references for French speakers wishing to learn some of the languages spoken in Taiwan.

Picture books and graphic novels

Francophone readers have a soft spot for richly illustrated books, such as Cheng Kai-hsiang’s Taiwan Street House (2019, a collection of watercolors featuring Taiwan’s street architecture), Chen Uen’s graphic novel Legends of Assassins (1986), Yu Pei-yun and Zhou Jian-xin’s Son of Formosa series (2020–2021, winner of the Prix Émile Guimet de Littérature Asiatique). Many French government representatives in Taiwan like to buy these books to give away as gifts.