Nicole Maruani, the founder

During more than 20 years, Nicole Maruani has been the owner of the bookshop, called after her name. Born in Sousse in Tunisia, she wanted to recreate the life she had there. It explains where her frienliness, her interests for the others and her smile come from. 

She had a happy childhood and a great education. However, her life was not always like that. In 1962, with her family they went to live in France. She recalls that she had to stop her studies to find a job, it was not easy for her, they made her feel that she was not from here.

But Nicole did not give up, she started to study medicine and she married and had children -Katia and Bruno, she had to stop again her studies. 

She was interested in music, artists, paintings and literature. She continued to support her husband, who ran a dry cleaner not far from the boulevard Vincent Auriol, where we could find a bookshop. When the owner told her that they were closing, she proposed to associate themselves in order to revive the shop. 

She faced financial difficulties and made choices, her family supported her and in 2001, she settled in the boulevard. From that day everything chnaged, she could create the place she dreamed of, where she could welcome and listen to her customers. 

Unfortunately, her husband was victim of a stroke and she had to put the bookshop on sell. Since she wanted the place to remain as a joyfull place, she refused various offers. 

Then Katia offered to join her and to work together, now it is her the owner and her mother is really proud of her; She brought modernity and new customers.

Katia Maruani-Bijaoui 

Now the bookshop has changed of owner but what importance since it’s her daughter. Katia wanted the name of her mother on the logo of the bookshop as the symbol of a strong filiation and the recognition for the work accomplished. 

In 2016, when Nicole was searching for an associate, she talked about it to Katia and she offered to take responsability of the store. Katia knew the story of the shop and the feeling of joy and sadness which came from it. She was already a great reader thanks to her french teacher who made her discover the love for literature. Then she took interest in the work of Stephan Zweig, Maupassant and more others.

At 18, freshly graduated her geographical universe became much more bigger. After working for Nina Ricci in order to pay for her holidays, she went to Cannes with her three friends. This was for her the time for a revelation, She saw the superficiality of relashionships and the social hierarchy based on money. However her ideas didn’t change  » It’s not just money that matters ». 

Back in Paris, she started a law degree even if she would have prefered to study architecture. She spent a lot of time outside and missed her first year and she was really disappointed. She had a goal, she wanted to find a job in real estate development or in a local authority or maybe in a company, however for this it is necessary to obtain more degrees. 

She fell in love of Olivier who already was a CEO of the company called WFS. It’s for her the start of a new journey between the education of her children abd her professional commitment within WFS. She looked after the property management and constructions. Katia wants to put in relief her belief: commitment, responsability and solidarity with projects of social insertion and formations until 2016. 

For her, it’s the begining of doubts and interrogations. What can I do? Those doubts will fastly disappear, the bookshop of her mother was wainting for her. She was full of new ideas like developping the food area, to make a new network system, to reorganise the management, keeping in mind the spirit of the place given by her mother. 

 

Isabelle Verlingue 

She is a librarian who likes american literature, sci-fi and comics. She took various paths before arriving at the bookshop in 2014. Originally from the Drome, she recalls from her childhood the life in the fresh air, the walks in the forest, her dogs. She also remembers watching Dorothée, Dragon Ball but also under the impulse of her mother reading a lot.

In high-school she did a theatrical formation. After having her high-school diploma she went to Aix-en-Provence in order to continue her artistical studies. She understood fastly that she didn’t want to follow this path because she wanted something more concrete since her studies were becoming more and more theorical, so she decided to work.

After doing some jobs, she went to Marseilles for one year, working in the food sector. She wanted to think about her future and since it was a tiring job, she went to Lyon where she spotted a librarian formation. It was the opportunity to learn more about the topic: about relationships with customers and the book circuit. 

After she went back to Marseilles and chained fixed-term contracts and she understood that what she learned during her formation wasn’t usefull where she was. For personal reasons she moved to Rouen. She was back again with her little jobs until she found at UGC a cashier position. After she needed to find another job and went to Paris where she was working at Virgin. She was happy to meet a lot of different people from various backgrounds. However the financial situation worsened, Virgin closed. Isabelle protested with some of her colleagues for indemnisations. 

An announce led her to the bookshop where she met Nicole and she liked the concept also the fact that the place was lively, she had the possibility to do a lot of different tasks and with the pleasure of seeing people coming to the bookshop and to give them advices and talk with them.

 

Marion

Between coffee latte abd books, it was impossible for her to choose, working at a café bookshop was the solution. 

Marion originally from Rouen left at 17 after having her high-school diploma, in order to study edition in the Estienne school, at only five minutes from the bookshop. 10 years after it’s a pleasure to be back in the same neighborhood. Meanwhile, she worked in the field of graphism, in restaurants, in a bar, in a middle-school… and started again her studies in Vietnamese before going to the East of South Asia. It’s in Vietnam where she discovered the world of scents of coffee, papers, a world she would like to evolve in. 

Back in 2021, Marion took a formation at the INFL brfotr bring welcolmed at the bookshop Maruani for an internship. Particularly at ease in that warm atmosphere and being well integrated, Katia proposed her to join the team for her great pleasure. 

In love with coffees and of different hot beverages, she regularly provide new flavours but you will also find her in the sci-fi and in the youth sections-her specialities- or sometimes in front of the foreign literature or lgbt+ sections.

Her experience in graphism also allows her to create visuals for the communication of the bookshop and to spread them on social media. 

For a spicy hot chocolate or for the latest youth book, don’t hesitate to ask her for advices.