Good things never go unnoticed. Saeed Book Bank, Pakistan’s leading bookselling store has been featured in The New York Times (NYT). The article published by the prestigious American daily revealed some exciting facts about the bookstore while unfolding its history and story to success.
Spread across 42,000 square feet in a modern three-storied building, Saeed Book Bank has a large inventory of books and journals on a wide range of subjects. Known for its diversity across the world, the book bank showcases 200,000 titles on its shelves and houses more than four million books in its five warehouses.
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Hailed as “one of the biggest bookstores in the world — mostly selling books in English” by NYT, the bookstore was founded by Mr. Saeed Jan Qureshi in 1955 with the aim of making books accessible & knowledge affordable.
He used to work for a feudal landlord in Sindh from a very young age where he had the responsibility of dusting the library shelves. Rod Nordland, the international correspondent of NYT, quoted an incident of his passion for books.
“One day Mr. Ali (the landlord) found him reading instead of working, and told the boy to get back to work immediately — but added that he could take a book home every night, so long as he returned it in mint condition.”
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The reporter added that Saeed never got past high school, but he was exceedingly well-read. Digging into the details of the establishment of the bookstore, the NYT explored that Mr Saeed opened his own bookshop in the 1950s after leaving his job as a book salesman but later moved his business to Islamabad where it is flourishing day and night despite several obstacles like book piracy and increasing online book sales.
While quoting his son Ahmad Saeed, who took over the business after his father’s death, Rod Nordland explained that “for his father, books were more than just a business.”
Mr. Qureshi used to regard book theft by children as an investment in a future and one of the penitent former book thieves who dropped in after his death was Suleman Khan, the vice-chancellor of Iqra University, in Islamabad.
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“He came to say that when he was a child, 6 years old or so, he stole an Archie comic book and my father saw him,” Mr. Saeed said. “He said he was afraid he was going to get slapped, but my father said: ‘This is good that you like books. So every day you can take a book but keep it in mint condition and return it when you’re done so I can still sell it.’”
The vice-chancellor added that “Everything that I am now, I owe to your father.”
