A NEW four-storey bookshop will open later this month in the former Universal Bank building on Theinbyu Road in Botahtaung township, Yangon.

U Thet Lwin Shwe, the owner of the bookstore, which will be called Baydar (water hyacinth), said he wanted to open the store so readers could find everything they wanted in one place.

“No one in Yangon can tell me of a good place to find all kinds of books in one place. It has been a big headache for me,” he said.

U Thet Lwin Shwe said the first and second floors of the store will be dedicated to Myanmar-language books, while the third floor will feature English-language books. The fourth floor will be used as office space from which he will publish a journal.

He said he hopes the bookstore’s location on Theinbyu Road will help expand the bookseller’s zone which is now centred on Pansodan Road a few blocks away.

“I’ve had to invest a lot in this shop and I’m not guaranteed to make a big profit, but this city needs a big bookstore,” he said.

“My parents used to be involved in book publishing so it’s familiar to me. I might even publish some books that other publishers have been afraid to invest in," U Thet Lwin Shwe said.

He said he also hopes that his new store will be more than just a place to buy books.

“It will also include a teashop where writers can meet, sip tea and discuss this and that,” he said.

“Some new writers and poets need to go from bookstore to bookstore distributing their books themselves. Most bookstores only want to sell works by famous authors but I want to give new writers an opportunity to expand their readership by selling their books,” he said.

“I want my bookshop to be an outlet for the literary community,” he said.