SAMUELIAN BOOKSTORE CELEBRATES 75TH ANNIVERSARY
By Petros Keshishian

AZG Armenian Daily
21/03/2006

The “oriental bookstore” under the signboard of “H. Samuelian” is
situated in the Latin Quarter of Paris.

This 75 years old bookstore sells books in various oriental languages
including Armenian books on history, art etc. The bookstore has a
wide collection of works on Slavonic, Byzantine, Iranian, Egyptian,
African, Arabian and Ottoman history.

The bookstore is an important cultural center where one can often
see Armenian and foreign armenologists, linguists, literature critics
and historians.

According to Parisian Le Monde, armenologists R. Thomson (Oxford),
Berth Voks Miluakin (Wisconsin), Reitenberg (Leiden), Michael Stone
(Jerusalem) and others.

Today the founder’s son, Armen Samuelian, and daughter, Mrs. Aslanian,
work at the bookstore. The bookstore has ties with a number of
bookstores in England, America and Italy.

In the recent years the Armenian youth shows greater interest in
Armenian history, art and culture, especially after the recognition
of the Armenian Genocide by the French parliament.

Samuelian bookstore was founded in 1931 and had only 5.000 volumes
at the beginning. The first books were bought from former bookseller
Balents of Constantinople. The main source of new books today are
the auctions, the Internet and book exchanges.