“Land of Spring”: The Story of a Book Village

Polar winter, spring of words. Fiyarland: a village where books have taken root. A story of the bond between harsh nature and the gentleness of paper, in a place where storehouses have become sanctuaries of thought.

Iran Ambassador Arjan Culture and Publishing Service, in the most remote corner of Norway's fjords, under the heavy shadow of the largest natural glacier of the European continent, a small village called "Fiarland" has managed to turn from a cold geography into the capital of literary tourism by breathing the spirit of books into the bodies of abandoned warehouses.

The name of the village means "land of spring" in the old native dialect, but a traveler who steps on this land for the first time may think that he has entered a scene from Philip Pullman's fantasy trilogy; A foggy, cold, mysterious world on the edge of the modern world. Here, spring is not just a calendar season, but the moment of the miraculous return of the pulse of life to a tissue that had been frozen in complete isolation for months.

When the calendar reaches winter, the village succumbs to the violence of nature. With more than two meters of snow sitting on the rooftops and the thermometer dropping to twenty degrees below zero, the roads are blocked and the residents officially call the bookstores "cold rooms". The public doors are closed and polar winds beat on the door and walls. But this hibernation is not the cessation of life. Behind thick wooden walls and layers of woolen local clothing, a quiet bustle is going on.

Local residents ride sleds down the slippery slopes, hauling heavy cartons of used books from the banks to the warehouses, stacking them up for the bright spring days. Winter for the people of Fiarland is not the season of fall, when the feast is prepared; The season of accumulating words that are supposed to come to life on sunny days.

The story of the transformation of this isolated corner of Scandinavia dates back to 1995; The days when Richard Boot, the famous creator of book villages, brought his bold idea to this fjord. Instead of spending exorbitant costs to build glass showcases, the residents made a different decision: more than five kilometers of wooden bookshelves were woven into the heart of the existing worn fabric. The unique beauty of Fairland is in this intelligent transformation of spaces.

The book-reading traveler in this village does not enter the bright commercial passages; In order to get the first editions of the plays, he opens the wooden door of an old stable that used to be a place for horses. In another corner, dark pens, with worn wooden beams and the smell of old hay, now host neat rows of leather-bound novels.

One of the most magnificent of these spaces is the "Estramogs" department store; A hall filled with antique copies and rare books, which is the main showcase of this narrative bazaar. A little further, the historical "Mondal" hotel stands out; A building left over from the end of the 19th century, where originality ripples through all its seams. Its lounges with walls covered with books create a unique experience of mixing the smell of wet wood, coffee and old paper.

But the true and unpretentious spirit of Fairland breathes in the place where the bookstores of "Ansty" or "honesty shelves" stand. Simple and unpretentious structures, consisting of a bare wooden shelf and a metal box to put the price of books. There are no cameras involved, no salesperson standing over the buyer's head. Even last year, when a fierce winter blizzard shattered one of these roadside shelves, the grief of the residents was more than for the financial loss, for breaking this symbol of intimacy; A sign that was revived with a few wooden boards and some nails in the same place with the first snow melt.

Fairland; This remote village shows in practice how to turn a paper product into a powerful motivation to travel and discover the new world by avoiding artificial glamor and respecting the traditional body of a geography.

Taken from the book "The World of Books and Bookstores" written by Jen Campbell, translated by: Nima Mani from Plan Naqd Publications

Polar winter, spring of words. Fairland; A village where books have taken root. A story of the connection of harsh nature with the softness of paper, where warehouses have turned into shelters of thought.

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